One Hello, Two Good-byes
by colormetheworld
Summary: Loosely inspired by the song "Hello Goodbye" by Red Molly. Just a little fun.
1. Chapter 1

Maura realizes two things right off the bat. The movers that arrive are clearly brothers.

They are brothers…and they are going to fight over her.

She shakes their hands and leads them up to her apartment, wishing too late that she'd taken the staircase behind them. She turns at her door to find one of them looking her up and down, smirk on his face.

"I have a lot of furniture," she says, choosing to ignore him. "And a good deal of kitchen appliances. I've managed to box up most of my bathroom, and bedrooms, but there's still a good deal to do. I'm not sure if just today will be enough."

One of the brothers – Maura believes him to be the younger of the two – shoots a look at the other.

"Hear that? Still a good deal to do in the bedroom."

Maura raises an eyebrow, as the older one (what was his name again?) punches his brother in the shoulder.

"Sorry," He says to Maura. "You have to forgive Tommy, he has a brain condition."

"Oh," Maura begins, ready to apologize.

"He doesn't have one," he finishes, and for a moment, there is silence.

Maura can tell by their faces that they were expecting her to laugh and respond, but all she can think is that there is absolutely nothing funny about a child born with no brain.

The older brother chuckles nervously into the awkward emptiness. "Sorry," he says. "It was a joke…I just meant that Tommy here doesn't always think before he speaks."

Maura manages a smile, looking between them. "Okay, so you're Tommy, and I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name-"

"Frankie," The older boy says, and he seems relieved to move on. "Where would you like us to start?"

.

Whatever her first impression of them, Maura soon discovers that they are efficient enough workers, and Frankie –at least – has done this kind of work before. She oversees them in the kitchen for about half an hour and then excuses herself to her bedroom to continue in there.

She works steadily for several hours, packing boxes methodically, listening to the banter of the brothers in the next room. A couple hours in, her phone buzzes, and she flips it over to see the name Annika Smart blinking up at her, along with the close up picture she'd set to pop up when she called.

Maura wants to curse.

She presses the decline button, and when after 35 seconds of silence, her ex-girlfriend calls again, Maura does swear under her breath, picking up the phone with a hiss.

"What?" she says, glancing towards the bedroom door. The boys have been dropping by periodically to take the boxes she's packed to the van, but the hallway outside her room seems clear.

"Maura," Annika says, "How are you?"

This makes Maura laugh. "How am I," she echoes. "How do you think I am, Annika? What do you think the answer to that question is?"

There is a pause, and Maura hears Annika take a breath. "Chelsea told me you're moving."

Maura grits her teeth. "I am."

"Why?" Annika sounds genuinely confused. "Why would you want to move? You just picked that place out."

"No!" Maura says, her voice higher than she'd like. "We picked it out! _We_ picked it out together."

"Maura."

"We walked through this apartment together, looking at all the appliances, planning our futures together."

"That doesn't mean you have to move," Annika cuts in, sounding reasonable.

"You're no longer in my life," Maura says. "Which means you no longer get to dictate anything about it."

"Maura, c'mon. You know this isn't what I wanted."

Maura snorts. "And yet, it's what you chose," she says, and now her anger is tipping the scales towards frustration, which is making her eyes burn. "You chose this," she says again.

"I didn't choose for you to hate me," Annika sounds like she might be getting weepy as well. "You're the one who's always talking about finding the thing that you're truly passionate about."

This hits Maura hard, and she makes a noise like a hiccup. "You're what I'm passionate about," she says, but Annika makes a sound of disagreement.

"No, I'm not, Maura," she responds. "I know you're upset we're not together anymore, but don't pretend that you're not totally head over heels in love with your school work."

Maura stares at her cleaned out bedroom. "That's…" she begins, but finds that she cannot completely deny this accusation.

Annika sounds too knowing when she speaks again. "Humanitarian work is important to me. Travel to me is like your lab books. I love you, M, but let's stop kidding ourselves okay?"

"I'm not living in the apartment that we chose together."

Annika sighs. "Fine," she says. "Where are you going?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business," Maura spits back.

"Seriously, Maura? You're just damn set on being spiteful? Let's be honest about what our relationship was, huh? Let's talk about how when something came up at the lab or at school, I wouldn't see you for days on end. Let's talk about how my degree in Sociology disgusts you, because it's 'subjective' and 'not based in any sort of factual data'"  
Maura can see Annika making the air quotes in her mind's eye.

"Let's talk about how I'm second to school, every time."

"Okay," Maura says, breathing deeply so that her voice does not shake. "And then, afterwards, we can talk about how, in our two and a half years together, you never once invited me out with your friends."

"Wha-"

"And then let's talk about how they would make fun of me, and you wouldn't stand up for me. We can finish by discussing how many times I had to bring up the subject of moving in together. We can talk about how, despite the gifts, and the sex, and our names on this lease…you were always ashamed of me."

Silence. Maura shakes her head, tears falling now. "Say whatever you want about my attachment to my studies. Maybe I did neglect you sometimes. But I was damn proud to call you my girlfriend, and if you had spoken to me, I would have changed. I would have worked at a compromise…with you."

Annika still doesn't answer, and after letting the silence drag on for another beat, she hangs up, wiping her eyes angrily.

When she turns to go back into the kitchen, she comes face to face with the older brother, Frankie, looking caught, and more than a little embarrassed.

"Sorry!" he says quickly. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop…I just came to ask if you had anymore packing tape and to tell you I think we should call it a day."

"It's fine," Maura wipes her eyes quickly. "I'm sure you would have heard me from the kitchen anyway…That was very impolite of me."

Frankie hesitates for a minute, then he steps forward. "You okay?"

She nods, but what comes out of her mouth is, "No! Women are such…" she trails off, hands gesturing hopelessly. "We chose this apartment so we could be together, did you hear that part? I went up against my mother and my father for her. I stood up to them because I believed her when she told me that we were going to last. How foolish of me."

Frankie fidgets slightly, and Maura realizes that her outburst must seem horribly immature. She turns away from him, shaking her head. "I'm sorry," she says and when he opens his mouth to protest, she speaks over him. "No…no, I am. I don't know what's come over me. Actually, that's not quite true. The brain often processes heartbreak like a physical injury, did you know that? Many of the same hormones are released into – I mean, not that I'm saying I'm _heartbroken_. I just mean that, an emotional trauma, an emotional _loss,_ I mean has the same effect as-"

"Miss Isles!" He's been trying to get her attention for the duration of her little speech.

She goes pink. "I'm sorry. You didn't ask for the details of my personal life."

But Frankie smiles kindly. "How long were you with her?" he asks. The question makes Maura sit down hard on the edge of her bed.

"Almost three years, can you believe it?"

"She's a college student like you?"

"Yes…well, she was. The phone call you heard the end of just now was her informing me that she was dropping out of B.U. and heading to Brazil to 'see what she could do there to help.'"

Frankie raises his eyebrows. Maura nods. "I know," she says. "It is not that I am against humanitarian work. Quite the opposite. The more I study medicine the more I think something like Doctors Without Borders would be very fulfilling. I just don't understand how she could throw away everything we," Maura catches herself, "everything _she_ worked for."

Frankie settles carefully on the edge of a box of books. "It just came out of the blue?"

Maura nods, then shakes her head. "Yes…No, I suppose it didn't. What is the saying? Hindsight is 20/20."

They sit there for a little bit longer, not talking, and then Tommy calls from down the hall, seeing what is taking her so long.

"I swear to God, Frankie, I called dibs. If you are in there smashing, I'm gonna be so-" but he pulls up at the door to the room, looking at Maura's red rimmed eyes with an almost comical surprise. "Oh…" he says. "Sorry…I…Did Frankie tell you we should finish up?"

Maura stands, smoothing her dress and nodding. "He did. Thank you."

Frankie stands too, turning to grab the boxes he was sitting on. "We left you a chair in the living room. And you have the bed. We'll be back tomorrow to grab those, and then we can head over to the new place."

They start out the door, Tommy throwing a meaningful look at his brother before heading down to the Van.

"See you!" he calls, jumping into the cab.

Frankie starts after him, but Maura holds him back. "Thank you," she says, "For listening to me earlier. You didn't have to do that."

Frankie grins. "No problem," he says. "I have a sister. I know what it's like."

He heads down the stairs and jogs to the truck, opening the driver's side door and punching his little brother until the boy slides over into the passenger's seat. "Tomorrow, 8am!" He calls, like a reminder, and she lifts her hand to see them off. It is still raised when the truck swings around the corner at the end of her street. She lowers it distractedly and turns to head back inside to her bare apartment.

…

The moving truck rolls onto her street at 7:57 the next morning. Maura hears the telltale shift of gears from the only chair left in her apartment, where she is trying to study for a Microbiology course. She opens the door as the truck rumbles to a stop outside her building, smiling when she sees Frankie Rizzoli's face pop up over the top of the cab. He waves, and she waves back registering the absurdity of the emotion even as she puts a name on it.

Happy. She is happy to see him. She is even looking forward to seeing scruffy little Tommy, and she drops her eyes to the passenger side door, expecting to see his smirking, handsome face. But the person climbing out is not Frankie's little brother, Tommy. She is a girl, with the same dark hair and tan skin as Frankie. She looks to where he's waving and then turns to look at Maura.  
She smiles and waves too.

Maura can only blink back in shock, standing there until the duo has made their way up the walk to where she is standing.  
"Hey, Maura!" Frankie says brightly, "Are you ready to-"

"Where's Tommy?" Maura interrupts.

Frankie pulls up short, but changes his approach easily. "This is my sister Jane," he says, "Tommy couldn't make it."

Jane holds out her hand. Maura takes it, feeling callouses under her fingers. "You're a mover too?"

Jane makes a nondescript movement with her shoulders, still smiling. "When necessity requires," she says. "So it's just a bed and a chair before we head to the new place?"

"Y-yes," Maura says, stepping aside.

Frankie follows Jane into the little hallway, and then towards the bedroom, and Maura stands in the hall, listening to them dismantle the bed.

She catches snippets of their conversation between the clunking, and Maura thinks that Frankie seems more at ease with his sister than he had with his brother.

"So, you told her then?" She hears Frankie ask. "Did she freak out?"

Jane sounds like she's blowing hair out of her face. "Nah. I mean…it was some time coming…" there's a massive thump, "…girlfriend," Jane finishes.

She turns away from the door, face hot. She feels stupid for confiding in the boy. Of course, he probably told Tommy about her in the car, and then Jane the moment he got home.

She is in the empty living room, facing away from the door when Jane comes striding in. She moves to the chair and lifts the textbook resting on it.

"Microbiology," She says with an appreciative whistle.

Maura turns around, frowning, but Jane is holding the book out to her with a smile. "You about ready?" she asks, and when Maura takes the book, Jane bends and lifts the chair all on her own. "We can follow you to the new place?"

Maura blinks at Jane's shoulder muscles flexing under the weight of the chair, and then looks up into the dark eyes, still glinting with the remnants of a smile.

 _Is she flirting?_ A realization hits Maura. _She is_ _flirting. Her brother must have told her because-_

"Um…Ms. Isles?"

Maura shakes herself. "Yes," she says, not returning the smile. "You can follow me. I'll see you out there."

And with that she moves past Jane, towards the front door. She doesn't look back.

…

…

"Look," Maura corners Jane in the little hallway outside her new bedroom, stepping in front of her before she can move into the bedroom with the box in her hands. "I'm not really sure what your brother told you about me," She holds up her hand to stop Jane from responding. "But I'm not some sad, lonely, charity case that needs her moving boy to fix her up with his sister."

Jane raises her eyebrows, shifting the box in her arms so she can lean a little on the wall. They've been moving all morning, Jane and Frankie going back and forth from the van to the one bedroom apartment on the third floor with tireless efficiency. Maura has not said many words to Jane, but every time she found herself in the brunette's presence, Jane had tried to start a conversation, or most recently, removed her t-shirt to reveal a tank top underneath, stuck to the middle of her back with sweat.

Jane furrows her brow. "Lord knows you're not a charity case, Miss Isles," she says with a amiable grin.

It rankles her that Jane continues to call her Miss Isles when Frankie calls her Maura. She squares her shoulders. "I know that Frankie told you my sad, sad story last night and that's why you're here instead of your little brother. I just want you to know I'm not interested. I don't need help from-"

But Jane drops the box to the floor with a loud thud, and crosses her arms.

"From your moving boy…yeah, yeah I get it."

Maura feels a stab of regret for her phrasing, but not enough to apologize.

"Hey," Jane says, "I'm just here to move boxes."

"So it's just a coincidence that the day after your brother witnesses the phone call in which my ex-girlfriend finalizes the end of our relationship, you arrive in your tank top, with your smile, and your biceps, and you…"

"Hey," Jane says, expression darkening. "Did it ever occur to you that you are not the center of everyone else's world?"

Maura looks at her, aghast. "What?"

"First of all, your moving boy, my _brother_ , is a good guy. He would never tell me something he thought he heard in confidence, not even the lovelorn confessions of some whiny upper class socialite, so I knew nothing about that until now."

"You can't speak to me like-"

"Second," Jane says over her. " _Tommy_ …is not a good guy. Not yet, anyway. He can move an elephant by himself, but he hasn't got the brains of a stick. He got picked up last night for armed robbery and assault. My father is too busy sleeping off your deposit to be bothered helping run _his own_ business, so that leaves me. Now, it's my day off, Miss Isles, and I'd rather be in my bed, asleep, waiting for the smell of _my_ girlfriend's pancakes to wake me up. But I'm not. I'm here, with my brother, moving your precious things. Because _he_ needed me. It has _nothing_ to do with you."  
Jane ends this little tirade with a snort, and bends to pick up the dropped box. When she straightens, Maura steps out of her way without a word, hoping that the heat she feels in her cheeks does not translate to a horribly dark blush.

…

…

Frankie and Jane finish a little before dusk, and Frankie knocks tentatively on her door to tell them they are headed out.

Maura pulls four hundred dollars out of her wallet and hands it over, replacing it in his hands twice when he tries to deny it.

"No, no, really. The two of you did a great job," she says over his protestations. "I mean it. I've had it ready for you since yesterday. Nothing broken or anything."

Finally Frankie accepts the money, shoving it into the back pocket of his jeans with a weak smile. "Thanks," he says, "a ton. This is really generous."

They walk back into the front room, but Jane is not there. Frankie sees her looking around.

"Hey," he says, apprehensive. "If Jane said something to offend you today, I'm really sorry. I sent her to the van, I noticed – uh – tension, this afternoon." He seems to see confirmation in Maura's face, and shakes his head, looking embarrassed. "It's my fault she was in a bad mood," he continues. "It's her day off, and she wanted to chill…but Tommy wasn't available, and you," he chuckles, "you have a lot of stuff."

"Oh," Maura says, feeling guilty. "No…no it wasn't her. We had a misunderstanding today. I was, well, I was a bit rude, I'm afraid. Please give her my apologies. And thank her for me too."

Frankie nods, goes to leave and then hesitates. "You know…Jane has a girlfriend too. I mean she's…She's gay too…not that that's what _you_ are. I just mean-"

Maura hushes him with a laugh, and Frankie looks relieved.

"She's had her share of rough break-ups," he continues after a second. "She could...probably lend an empathetic ear, if you need someone."

She stares at him, and he colors under her gaze for a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a business card. He scrawls a number on the back of it, and then hands it to her.  
"That's her number. I'll tell her I gave it to you so she'll respond."

"Oh, but-" Maura begins, but Frankie is already heading out the door.

"Also, keep us in mind for any other moving needs you might have," he says, and this is part of his speech. "If your friends say your name, they get 15% off!"

"Thank you," she manages finally, and like the day before, he waves at her from the cab of the van, although this time, Jane is in the driver's seat.

She watches them drive away, turning the business card over and over in her hands without realizing what she's doing.

 **5 Chapters, 5 Days.  
Just a little rom/com (well I hope there's some "com" in here) for ya'll. **

**see ya'll tomorrow.**

 **happy reading**

 **tc**


	2. Chapter 2

Jane wakes to the sensation that she is being buried alive. Something soft and heavy thumps onto her chest, pulling her out of a delicious dream in which Chrissy Teigen is wearing only a bikini.

"mmph," she says, struggling to sit up. Something else, more of the same, hits her in the shoulder, and she blinks, trying to adjust to the morning light. Her girlfriend, Jenna, is half in the closet, tossing dirty clothes onto the bed.

"Morning, Bright eyes," Jane says sleepily. Jenna doesn't answer, just continues to throw the odd shirt and sock onto the bed.

Jane rubs her eyes again and looks at the clock.

"Oh, Jenna!" she whines. "It's an _hour_ before I have to get up." She falls back against the pillows, draping an arm over her eyes. "You woke me up from a beach make out session."

"Chrissy again?" Jenna asks, tossing the last of the stuff onto the bed. "You know, we do own a laundry bag."

Jane pulls her hair back into a ponytail, rolling her shoulders. "Ugh," she says. "I'm sore."

"Moving?"

Jane nods. "Yeah, I think I pulled something." She pouts up at her girlfriend, who does shakes her head.

"Oh no, Rizzoli. You're not getting out of this," says, sounding muffled as she sticks her head back into the closet. "Today is laundry day, and the mat is on your way. I told you three days ago to pack it up so you wouldn't have to get up early to do it, but did you listen?"

Jane doesn't answer. She lies back down, hoping to pretend that she's fallen back asleep, but there is a slight pause, and then more clothes drop squarely onto her face.

"Jen!" Jane says, sitting up and rubbing her eyes, "gross!"

Jenna laughs. "It's mostly your boxers, Jane, grow up."

"Ugh. When was the last time we did laundry?"

" _We_?" Jenna asks, sounding scandalized. "The last time _I_ did laundry, was two weeks ago. And _I_ also did it a week before that. I'm always doing it. I had a plan to let you run out of t-shirts and ankle socks, but that would mean waiting until 2020, and ain't nobody got time for that."

Jane laughs, despite herself, and rolls out of bed, gathering the dirty clothes in her arms as she goes. She dumps them into to bag on her way into the bathroom, sighing at how full it is. "That's gonna be like fifteen bucks worth," she calls from the sink. Jenna doesn't answer.

She exits the bathroom 10 minutes later, and heads down the hallway to the living room lugging the bag of laundry. Jenna is on the couch zipping her boots. She looks up at Jane with clear blue eyes.

"So tonight is family dinner, right?" she says, and it is obvious that she's trying to keep her tone neutral.

"Yeah," Jane says, ignoring a stab of guilt. "I won't be later than 9, though."

Jenna stands, reaching for her messenger bag. She considers the clasp. "Did you even ask them?" she asks finally. "Did you tell them I wanted to come?"

Jane shoves her hands into her pockets. "I just…I think with everything going on with Tommy," she starts, but this seems like a lame excuse. Tommy is in and out of trouble. It barely counts as a large disruption anymore. "It's just so new," she says, "I think if we just give them time to accept that I've…moved." She trails off as Jenna looks up at her.

"We aren't new," she says, with effort. "They have known about me for six months now, Jane."

"I just moved in last month…" Jane tells her shoes. "It's only been three weeks since mom stopped crying on my voicemail."

"But she stopped." Jenna says. They stand there, and Jane can't bring herself to quite look into her girlfriend's eyes.

Abruptly, Jenna turns away, done pushing for the moment. "I will see you tonight then," she says curtly.

"I'll make it up to you," Jane murmurs.

And Jenna steps up to her, kissing her on the cheek before heading for the door.

"Do the laundry," she says.

….

…..

Jane is late to family dinner.

She tries to sneak into the house, but in the week since she has been to her parent's house, her mother has installed a little set of bells over the front door, and as soon as she pushes the door knob, they announce her arrival to the silent front hall like a trumpet call.

"Is that Jane?" Her mother calls from the back of the house. "Jane?"

"It's either me or a fairy got its wings," she mutters, but she puts on a smile as her mother pops her head around the corner.

"It is!" She says happily. "You're late!"

Jane hangs her coat and heads down the hall to the kitchen. Frankie is leaning against the fridge, beer in his hand, and her mother is back at the stove, stirring something that smells delicious.

"Sorry, Ma," she says, accepting a beer from her brother. "Sparring ran late, and then I had to drop the laundry off at home so Jenna could hang some of it."

Her mother's jaw tightens, and Jane curses herself for leading with something about being a police officer and then chasing it with her girlfriend. These are her mother's two least favorite topics.

"She makes you do laundry," her mother says, a bit disdainful. "Does she know how busy you are?"

"She doesn't _make_ me," Jane says, and then after a meaningful look from Frankie, she steps forward and kisses her mother on the cheek. "How are you?"

Her mother sighs. "Just fine, hon, thank you. Worried sick about your brother, but just fine."

Jane and Frankie avoid each other's eyes. "Have you heard anything yet?" she asks.

"Not beside the bail hearing date…" her mother turns, spoon in her hand. "Maybe you could check around at the precinct, Jane?"

Jane goes to answer, but a voice behind her beats her to it. "She shouldn't be sticking her nose out down there, Ange," her father says, coming around the corner dressed in his work pants and an undershirt. "She's new. That's not how you get ahead."

Angela makes a tsking noise with her teeth. "Still," she says, "her brother."

"Yeah," Frank puffs his cheeks. "Her brother who's a criminal. Really gonna put her ahead, going around claiming him."

"Don't speak about your son like that. He's doing the best he can."

Frank gestures that Frankie should hand him a beer. Jane doesn't see any opportunity to talk him into a different beverage, and she wonders how many he's had since he got home. She wonders if he was drinking on the job, and makes a note to ask her brother when they get a moment to themselves.

"If that's the best he can do, then I-"

"Hey," Jane intervenes, taking the beer from Frankie and handing it to her father, placing herself in the middle of everyone. "Ma, I'll look into it if the chance comes up. Pop, lay off Tommy. Okay? Everyone happy?"

There is a general mumbling of agreement, and Jane finds herself speaking just to fill the tense silence that has fallen. "You know why sparring ran late?" She asks the room at large.

"Why," Frankie asks, always the good sport.

"I punched the head off the training dummy!" Frank and Frankie laugh, though Angela doesn't. "I mean, it was old, yeah, and had been sewn back on a couple hundred times, so I definitely wasn't the first to do it, but-"

"That's my girl!" Frank says, rumbling with laughter. "Gonna make the best damn cop the city's ever seen." He puts a heavy arm around her shoulder, and Jane feels her face burn, the dual emotions of pride at her father's attention and frustration and her mother's obstinate silence. "Ange!" Frank says, "dinner about ready? Should we sit or what?"

Angela nods without looking around, and Frank heads towards the dinning room, his arm still around Jane who has no choice but to follow.

"You remember that time in the park when you kicked that little bully on the playground who stole your Barbie? Bam, right in the nuts. Proudest day of my life…"

Behind her, still in the kitchen, Jane hears her brother say, "here, Ma, let me grab the plates."

….

"God, that was excruciating," Jane shuts the door behind her, rolling her eyes at the soft tinkle of the bells. She has spent most of family dinner avoiding subjects that would rile one or both of her parents. This means that her conversation was limited to the weather, the moving company –though her father had looked grumpy at the mention and Frankie inexplicably awkward – and how the price of milk seemed to be skyrocketing lately.

"It's the first family dinner since you moved," Frankie says, coming to sit next to her on the front porch. "Give them some time."

"I just feel like there's no safe topic," she says. "I can't talk about Jenna. I can't talk about work…I can't talk about the academy."

Frankie rubs the back of his neck. "Dad thought that academy story about the dummy was cool."

"Dad was tanked halfway through dinner," Jane says with a head shake. "Seriously, I don't know how she puts up with him."

"Yeah…and he bailed on the Peterson job."

Jane turns to look at her brother. "He what? That big job down in Southie?" Frankie nods and she clenches her fists, working not to snap at him when the anger she feels is towards her father. "How could he," she says. "And how could you not tell me?"

"You didn't have time," he says, and when she starts to talk, he shakes his head. "You didn't, Jane. You can't keep putting your career on the back burner for us."

"Did you get it done?"

Frankie nods, "Yeah, Shane helped me."

"For how much?"

"Half."

"Shit," Jane swears. "He's gonna put it all up is nose, you know that right?"

Frankie shrugs. "We got it done. He didn't lift anything."

Jane shakes her head. "Call me next time," she says, and when Frankie looks unsure she looks him in the eye. "Call me next time. I'm faster than that Cokehead, and I won't take all your money."

Frankie nods. They sit in silent for a moment, and then Frankie sighs. "Hey, Jane…I'm gonna quit the business," he says lowly.

"What?" Jane is sure she hasn't heard correctly.

"I'm quitting Rizzoli Movers," Frankie says again. "I'm joining the force. Like you."

Jane doesn't know what to feel. She is proud and sick to her stomach, and relieved and terrified. So she does what she normally does when she doesn't know what to feel.

"Shit," she swears.

"Haven't told Pop yet," Frankie says.

"He could go back to plumbing," Jane replies, wondering as she says it aloud if it is true. "Have something for Tommy when he gets back."

 _If._

"So, you're not pissed?" when Frankie is nervous, he looks like the kid she used tote around on the back of her bike when they were kids.

She puts her hand on his shoulder. "No," she says, "Not in the slightest. Just…"

"What?" He looks at her, concerned.

"Just don't follow me into the job like you followed Pop. Just make sure it's something you want to do."

Frankie looks relieved. He holds out his hand. "Deal."

…

Before they head out for the night, both laden with leftovers from dinner, Frankie pulls Jane aside and gives her her cut of Maura's tip.

"150?" Jane asks, thunderstruck.

"Yeah," Frankie nods, "I gave Ma Tommy's cut already too."

Jane bites her tongue, wanting to avoid that topic entirely, and looks down at the bills in her hand. "She should have hired like…real, professional movers if she had this kind of cash to throw around. This is a 30% tip."

"Well, she said she was happy with the work," Frankie pauses for a second and then seems to decide to go further. "Hey, did you guys fight on that last day? You both seemed kind of peeved with each other."

Jane huffs, the indignity of the day coming back to her in a rush. "She thought you ditched Tommy and brought me just so that the two of us could hook up," she says brusquely. There is no need to mince words with Frankie, he is her best friend and her confidante.

His eyes widen. "Oh no! Because I heard her on the phone with her ex the day before."

"Yeah," Jane confirms. She thought you brought me along to mend her broken heart or some shit."

Frankie laughs, "Damn! Yeah, _that_ didn't even cross my mind," he says, laughing harder when Jane punches him. "What?" he cries. "What was that for?"

"I _could_ offer support if I wanted to," Jane grumbles. "I'm very sensitive."

Frankie stares at her. "Yeah…I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole. Besides, I gave her your number anyway."

Now it is Jane's turn to look shocked. "You what?"

"Not for a _date_ , or anything." Frankie hesitates. "I just…it sounded like she put a lot on the line for her relationship, and since it didn't work out, she's all alone now." He looks at her, eyebrows raised. "You know something about that."

Jane rolls her eyes. "Only sort of," she says. "I can't pay _you_ to leave me alone."

Frankie guffaws. "And you wouldn't have it any other way."

…

…

But she is still thinking about Maura Isles when she pulls up in front of her apartment building 25 minutes later. Thinking about the microbiology textbook, about the endless amount of books they'd lugged up the stairs to that apartment. Jane had wanted to stop and browse through some of them, she'd never seen such a collection in all of her life.

She'd asked about a couple of them, but Maura had been unwilling to chat. Jane knows now it was because Maura believed she was only there to ask her out.

Parking the car, Jane pulls out her cell and taps the screen until she has the number she's looking for. Barry Frost is a childhood friend of hers, a couple years behind her in school and currently a sophomore at B.U. It's a long shot, but Jane reasons not out of the realm of possibility. They hang out

 _Hey, Frost_ , she types. _You round?_

He answers almost immediately, attached to his phone like it's his girlfriend.

 _Rizzoli, what's up?_

Frost is studying Computer Science and Engineering at B.U. although Jane knows he's much more interested in the Criminal Justice courses he takes on the side.

 _Frankie and I moved a girl yesterday_ , she types, and she's halfway through the next line when his answer pops up.

 _Yeah I heard about your brother. I'm really sorry._

Jane shakes her head like her friend can see her. _No. I was gonna ask if you knew the girl. Maura Isles? She goes to BU too._

This time the bubbles that signify a response is in the works pop up and disappear several times.

 _She hot? I thought you just told Jenna you wanted to commit to her._

Jane snorts. _I did. That's not why I'm asking…_ Jane is going to type more, but the truth is that she can't actually _think_ of a reason for asking. Finally she settles on, _she gave me and Frankie a really good tip._

As lame as it sounds to her, Frost doesn't seem to notice.

 _Enough to put a down payment on the car?_

Jane sighs. _Keep dreaming._

 _What does she look like? There's a Maura in my Ethics in Computer Engineering class, I think_

 _Blonde, small_ Jane types back, and then she hesitates, trying to say attractive without saying attractive.

 _Yeah…that does not narrow it down, Jane._

 _Lol._ Jane sighs. _She's got nice eyes. They're like…green brown. And dimples._

Frost's text bubble appears and disappears several times, and she can picture his face as he tries to think of the appropriate barb.

But surprisingly, all she gets back is _Dunno, might be._

And then _Hey, bunch of us are going out for Hibachi this weekend. You in?_

Jane is hardwired to say no. Ever since he started college, she'd felt the divide between them starting to grow. Frost had new friends who all seemed to know more than she did, and who all seemed to have more money. And although Jenna had assured Jane that most of their perceived slights were in her head, she couldn't shake the feeling that they were all judging her.

She doesn't respond for long enough that Frost texts again, a little puppy dog emoji on either side of his words. _Please J? I never see you anymore._

She sighs, touching the pocket of her jeans that holds the 150 from her brother.

 _Yeah. Can Jenna come?_

Frost responds in record time, just one word.

 _YES!_

…

Jenna is there when she gets home from dinner, and she pats the couch as Jane slips off her shoes.

"Come here," she says with a grin, "you can help me read these essays."

The coffee table is full of Jenna's student's papers, and as Jane hangs up her coat, her girlfriend picks up the paper on the top of the pile.

"I really liked reading this book. I forget the name, but it would be cool to live in a museum, I think. Except I wouldn't bring my brother, he doesn't know how to save money and he needs to, like, sleep with a blanket and a nightlight," she reads.

Jane chuckles. "She forgot the name of the book?"

Jenna rolls her eyes. "The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler. Remind me why I thought teaching fourth grade would be at all rewarding?"

Jane heads into the kitchen to stow the leftovers from her mother in the refrigerator. "In her defense," she calls, "That title is not short."

When she comes back into the living room, Jenna is bent over an essay, her auburn hair shielding her face.

"Did you gas the car? Tomorrow's my turn and I'm going to a teaching conference in Worcester."

"Yeah. Three quarters." Jane leans against the doorframe. "Frankie's quitting Rizzoli Movers."

Jenna's head snaps around. "What?"

"He's quitting, and he's joining the force."

They stare at each other, and Jane watches as her girlfriend comes up with and rejects question after question.

Finally, she settles on. "Wow." She pats the couch again and Jane goes to sit next to her. They don't talk about all the possible outcomes of Frankie quitting his father's business. They don't talk about Tommy's absence, and they definitely don't revisit the topic of how Jenna is still not invited to Family dinner, though she's been dating Jane for nine full months.

Jenna leans forward and switches on the television, stopping it on ESPN. She settles back into the couch with a fresh essay, and when Jane leans back next to her, she snakes her arm around her shoulders.

"Gonna be okay," she says.

"Frost asked us to Hibachi this weekend. I got a sweet tip from the moving job," Jane says.

Jenna nods, and a smile curls her lips though she looks like she's trying to stop it. "Sounds good to me. We haven't seen Frost in a while."

Jane nods, and sighs, snuggling in.

She manages not to think about anything but Sports Center for the rest of the night.

* * *

...

 **woah! hi everyone. new faces, old faces. So good to see you all! I hope this continues to be enjoyable.**

 **So...Hibachi sounds good. I mean, what could go wrong.**

 **see you tomorrow.**

 **happy reading**

 **tc**


	3. Chapter 3

Three days after she has moved into her new apartment, Maura gets asked out on a group date by a boy in her Ethics in Computers class.

His name is Garrett Fairfield, and there's something endearing about the way he shakes his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes, and trips nervously over his words when he asks.

She says yes, because her apartment feels cold and empty when she returns to it, and her phone is silent on the coffee table from 7pm until the alarm wakes her in the morning.

"It's hibachi," he says. "Is that cool? A bunch of us are going."

She agrees, and he smiles and takes down her address in his phone before waving and jogging to catch up with some of his friends.

Maura waits until he is out of site to ask Siri just what Hibachi is.

...

...

They arrive at Osaka ten minutes early, but when Garrett helps Maura out of the car, she can see that there is already a throng of people outside. Maura thinks they must be waiting for their table, but then Garrett lifts his hand and calls out to them.

"Hey!" he calls, "Joey!"

A tall, broad shouldered man turns towards them, grinning when he picks them out of the crowd.

"Garrett!" the man named Joey greets them, and as they draw nearer, they shake hands, and then Joey focuses his attention on her.

"This must be Maura," he says taking her hand too. "It's really nice to meet you. Hey, come and meet the group."

He leads them a couple steps to a group of people who all turn to greet her. "This is Barry Frost," he says, "he's in our Computer Ethics class."

Barry is a good looking young man with dark skin and light, warm eyes. He smiles at her as he takes her hand, and she can't help but return it.

"Nice to finally meet you," he says. "I think I've seen you around," he looks over his shoulder. "Actually, hang on, Jane! Jen!" he beckons at a couple a few paces away, and as they turn, Maura feels her throat go dry.

Jane the mover is standing there in front of her. She and Maura make eye contact, and recognition surfaces on the girl's dark features.

"Jane," Barry says as the two near them, "this is Maura, from my Computer Ethics class. Is she the one you moved the other day?"

Maura feels the flush in her chest, and prays it doesn't reach her cheeks. They've spoken about her? Did Jane tell them all about how Maura confronted and accused her? She looks into Jane's face, and the brunette seems to be deciding how she wants to respond. She seems to know that she holds the direction of the evening in her hands.

She smiles. "Yeah!" she says cheerfully. "It's nice to see you again." She reaches out and tugs Jenna a step closer. "This is my girlfriend, Jenna."

Jenna holds out her hand, her smile bright and, Maura thinks, oblivious. Maybe Jane hasn't told her about their previous interactions.

"It-It's nice to meet you," she says, smiling around at them. "How do you all know each other?"

"Jane and I grew up together," Barry says.

"Yeah, and Joey's my cousin," Jenna puts in. "We all go kinda far back."

"Not me," Garrett says, and Maura starts. She'd almost forgotten he was there.

"You're an honorary Boston street kid," Joey says, slinging an arm around Garrett's shoulders. "Even if you are from _Connecticut_." he puts on snooty accent for the state name, and Maura does not say that she is from Connecticut as well.

Jane makes a face. "Well now that we're all here, and acquainted, can we go in and get to know our food? I am starving," she pauses for the space of a second, and Maura doesn't miss the glance thrown in her direction. "And I am flush," Jane continues. "So let's hit it."

"Here here!" Jenna says with a laugh.

Maura notices that as they head in to the restaurant, Jenna slips her hand into the back pocket of Jane's jeans.

…

She finds herself sitting with Garrett on her left and Jane on her right. Jenna sits next to Jane at the end and Barry Frost catty corner, with Joey on the other side. There are enough of them that they are afforded an entire table to themselves.

"Have you ever done hibachi before, Maura?" Garrett asks her.  
She shakes her head. "I've had Japanese food in the past," she says, feeling Jane tilt her head to listen, "but I've never done an outing like this."

"You're going to love it," he says with a cheeky grin. "They cook the food right at the table, and the chef does all sorts of tricks with the food while he's cooking."

Maura tries to look interested at this, but she can tell by his expression that she looks more concerned than excited.

She glances at the flat metal surface in the middle of their table, and then to her other side, where Jane and her girlfriend are chatting to each other.

"They cook the food right there?" she asks, indicating the flat top grill. "Doesn't it get awfully hot?"

"Not too hot," Garrett says reassuringly, "And yes, they cook it here. That's what Hibachi means."

"No it isn't," Maura says automatically.

Garrett raises his eyebrows. "What? Yes it is."

"No!" Maura insists, "in Japan, a hibachi is a round, or box-shaped, open-topped container, heatproof and designed to hold charcoal. I seriously doubt there's charcoal under there. It would be a safety violation."

"Well she's got you there," says a voice from the other side of her. Maura turns to see Jane and her girlfriend both of them with wide smiles. Jenna leans forward, around Jane, to speak again. "Do you speak Japanese?" she asks.

"Oh, no," Maura says. "When Garrett invited me, I looked up what it was. I'm afraid I was a little bit off, however."  
"Yeah," Jenna says with a nod, "North American Hibachi refers to a style of eating. Sort of communal and interactive. Probably a total bastardization of the real culture, but hey." she shrugs as if to say, _what can you expect from Americans_.  
Maura smiles back, feeling a little more at ease.

Garrett clears his throat and she turns back to him, still smiling.

"Well, now that that's cleared up," he says, "tell me more about you."

She does, telling him about her premed track at BU, her plans to be a doctor, and to possibly travel in that capacity, and then, because he asks, about her previous relationship, though she leaves out the pronouns and lets him assume.

As the chef comes with his cart of raw vegetables and meat, Maura learns that Garrett is a senior at BU, that he grew up not far from her own home in Connecticut, and that they are - for all intents and purposes - cut from the same upper crust of wealthy suburban families.

"A doctor," Jane says from the other side of her, and Maura turns, nodding. The brunette has seemed wrapped up in her conversations with her girlfriend, or with Frost via flying airplane napkins. Maura hadn't even been aware she was listening.

"That's pretty cool," Jane says now. "I'm in training to be a cop," she grins at Maura's obvious confusion. "The moving business is my father's. I just help out."

Jenna leans in to contribute, her hand on the back of Jane's neck. "She's top of all her classes," she brags. "She's going to be great."

Jane blushes briefly, but she nods. "Bet on it."

Maura is about to respond, but just then, there is a stir at the other end of the table. She turns in time to see the chef tap his spatula, launching a tiny carrot piece into the air. Joey, at the end of the table, leans back and catches it cleanly in his mouth.

Maura joins in the clapping, even laughing along, until she realizes that the chef is winding up for Barry, and an ice cube of terror slips down her spine.

This game is meant for all of them.

She watches as the man goes down the line, first Joey, then Frost nod vigorously and open their mouths wide to catch the carrot piece as the chef launches it towards them. It is Garrett's turn, and then it will be hers, and all she can think is _please let him skip me, please let him skip me_. Garrett too, catches the carrot on his first attempt. The table erupts in cheers.

The chef turns to her, long spatula in his hand, carrot balanced on the end.

"Ready?" he has a large grin, his mouth open a little, eyes wide. "Ready?"

Maura shakes her head. "No," she says, hearing her voice do that breathy, fake chuckle thing that it always does when she is nervous. "Not me, thank you. No, thank you."

From down the table, on the other side of Barry, Joey cups his hands around his mouth. "Booooo," he jeers. "C'mon, Maura! Catch the carrot?"

Garrett leans towards her. "Yeah," he says with a lopsided grin. "It's easy. It's part of the experience."  
"I can't," Maura says, determined to keep her smile in place even though she feels as though she might burst into tears. "I don't think I could catch it if I tried."

"BOOOO!" Joey, louder now, and some people at other tables are starting to turn around and look.

Jenna leans forward, frowning at her cousin. "Can it, Joe," and then to Maura, "you don't have to do it if you don't want to. Jane, you go!" Jenna grins at Maura. "She's never missed."

The chef turns to Jane with the carrot, and Jane makes a show of setting up.

"No," Garrett says, and he snaps to get the chefs attention. "Maura's going to go. It's her turn." He looks at her, still smiling although it seems to have gone a bit hard. "Just try, Maura. It's part of the whole night."

She doesn't want to. It must be written all over her face, because Barry nudges Garrett with his elbow and mumbles something that sounds like "she doesn't have to," when he turns to look at him.

"BOOOO!" Joey again, if possible, even louder. "Do it. Do it. Do it!" He starts the chant, and Garrett picks it up, and then other people at other tables, following blindly, and Maura's face must be hotter than the flat top grill in front of them, and through the haze of oncoming tears and panic, she sees the chef launch the carrot into the air.

But she doesn't get a chance to catch it.

Jane stands, and reaches out, catching the little piece in the air, and with a vicious swipe of her arm, she has winged it across the table at Joey, hitting him square in the eye.

"She said she didn't want to do it, you arrogant sack of shit!"

Several things happen at once.

Joey falls back in his seat with a cry of pain, nearly tipping it over.  
The chef, in his shock, as lowered his arm too much, and his sleeve erupts in flames.

Garrett, seeing the flame, grabs Maura's water and throws it at the chef with his own yell of shock.

Jenna yells Jane's name.

Barry crows in what Maura can only imagine is a combination of shock and joy.

Three and a half minutes later, they are all thrown out onto the street.

...

"You stupid, idiotic, cow dyke!" Joey is screaming, still clutching his eye.

"Shut up, Joey," Jenna says, following after her cousin, trying to pry his hand away to look at his eye. "She said she didn't want to do it. Did you have to make a whole thing out of it. And don't call my girlfriend a dyke, you ass."

"Really," Garrett says, glancing nervously at Maura, "is any of this necessary? That display back there was-"

"Is that what your game is, Grant? You just humiliate people who are trying to have a nice time. Who are already overwhelmed?"

Maura realizes with a jolt that Jane is talking about her. _How did she know I felt overwhelmed?_ she wonders. _Was I that obvious?_

"Listen, Gayzoli," Joey spits, "It's not your job to make sure little miss priss over there is comfortable. That's her date's job." He spaces the last words out as though she is hard of hearing.

Jane pulls up short, looking around at Garrett, and then at Maura.

"Wait…" she begins.

"Joey, stop being such a dick," Jenna says, and she gives up on trying to see his eye, and moves back towards her girlfriend. "Jane, let's just go," she says, looking apologetically at Maura. "Maura, I'm really sorry this all."

"Don't stand up for her just cuz she eats your pussy," Grant shouts, loud enough that a group of guys walking by turn to look. "Family before sex, Cousin."

But he doesn't get further than that, because Jane lunges at him and punches him squarely in the nose, knocking him down.

…

…

Maura makes her way to the T stop alone. Garrett had tried repeatedly to get her to let him drive her, but she'd declined.

Jenna had led a bleeding Joey to her car, glaring at a panting and remorseful looking Jane.

Barry had offered to hang with Jane, but the brunette had waved him away enough times that he'd given up, wandering off in the direction of downtown…and Maura had just wanted to be alone.

She descends the stairs and looks around at the people all waiting for the train. behind her, someone else approaches, and out of the corner of her eye, Maura sees Jane.

She stands stock still, hoping she won't be seen.

Hoping she'll be seen.

Hoping…for something she can't explain or name.

"I didn't know you dated men,"

Jane comes to stand next to Maura near the yellow line that warns them away from the tracks.

Maura looks at her, raising an eyebrow. Is _everything_ this woman says untimely and borderline inappropriate? Jane seems to see she's misstepped, but her next sentence only digs her in deeper.

"Sorry, I mean, I thought you only dated women."

"You assumed," Maura says.

Jane nods, looking down at the ground. "Yeah," she says after a second. "Yeah, I did. Sorry."

And something about this genuine apology makes Maura relent. "It's fine," she says. "You know I assumed something about you as well."

"You did?"

"Yes," Maura nods. "I assumed you were just a mover."

And Jane laughs, a deep surprisingly melodious sound. "Nah. I'm not just a mover. I'm trying to become a cop."

"And I do not only date women," Maura allows. "I don't put any limitations on my capacity for attraction."

Jane grins at her. "Touche."

They stand for a while, looking for the train, and the silence less awkward than it was before. Then Jane turns to her again. "Hey, listen. I'm sorry about dinner."

Maura doesn't answer immediately, and Jane seems to take this as a rejection of her apology.

"I mean for catching that food. For starting all that shit with Joey and Garrett. I thought, I mean, I _assumed_ that his attention was unwanted. And I thought you looked terrified at the thought of having to catch that thing in your mouth, and I didn't want you to have to be on the spot if you didn't want-"

"It's okay," Maura says, cutting Jane off.

"No," Jane is on a roll now. "It's not. I acted like an idiot."

"You both did," Maura says, hoping that this will help ease the brunette's guilt. "But, there's no lasting harm done."

Jane nods. They stand in silence until the train rolls into the station, and then they surprise each other by both getting on.

"You're going my way?" Jane says, and Maura thinks she sounds pleased despite her shock.

"Only three stops, I believe," Maura says, "But I still don't want to walk."

"I hear you," Jane replies. She choses a seat by the window, and looks expectantly at Maura, who joins her after only a second of hesitation.

The doors hiss shut and the train starts to move. Jane rubs her left hand with her right, looking away from Maura, out the window.

"Is your hand okay?"

Jane shakes herself from her thoughts, looking down at her lap. "Huh? Oh, yeah…it's fine."

"You throw a pretty good left hook," Maura says, pleased when Jane fights a smile. "You must be top in hand to hand at the academy."

She has a dimple on the cheek that's facing Maura. It's really, very attractive.

"Yeah?" Jane asks.

"Yes," Maura responds.

"And yeah, I am." Jane says, but then she sighs, her features dipping back down into despair. "Jenna is going to yell herself hoarse when she gets home."

"Mmm," Maura says, considering. "If she hasn't already lost her voice yelling at her cousin."

Jane turns to look at her, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Didn't you notice?" Maura asks, continuing when Jane shakes her head. "She was on your side right up until you punched him."

Jane seems to replay the evening in her head. Finally, she raises her eyebrows and looks at Maura, smile back on her face. "You know what? I think you're right."

"Yes, I am," Maura says, and Jane laughs. It's not a mean laugh, however, but warm and inclusive, so she joins in.

Her stop comes quickly, and Jane waves at her as the door to the train slides shut. "See you!" she calls. Maura waves until the train is gone.

"Yeah," she says quietly. "See you."

…

…

She is happy to be home. She fits her key into the front door and pushes into the hallway, snapping the light on as she goes. The night out with people has drained her, and as she sets down her keys and purse on the hall table, she heaves a sigh.

She heads into the living room and snaps on the television, watching as the ten o'clock news flashes up on the screen.

 _Another woman missing, and her husband found dead. Stay with us we'll have this breaking story and more, coming up._

Maura listens to the news with half an ear, replaying the night in her head. She thinks of the way Jane had stood up for her, the way Jenna and Jane had come to her defense, and even Barry too, there at the end.

She hadn't said thank you for that. Had she said thank you?

She sits up in her chair, trying to remember. No, she hadn't. All she'd done was chastise Jane for her aggression.

And then, the answer comes to her. She stands up, excited and hurries into the little side room that will become her study.

She searches through several different file folders before she finds it, and when she pulls it out, she smiles, sending up a little thank you that her parents at least taught her to hold onto documents. Stapled to the invoice from Rizzoli Movers is the business card that Frankie had written Jane's number on. She pulls it off and turns it over, reading the little note there for the first time.

 _Jane Rizzoli  
555-6432  
take care_

Maura feels a rush of affection for this boy she knows very little about. He'd taken the time to write this for her, a girl he didn't know, who was rude to his sister, and probably seemed like any other materialistic upper class student he'd moved. For a moment, she wonders if he'd done it before, either with Jane's number or his own, but then she shakes the question aside.

Genuine or not, Frankie had given her Jane's number, and now they had more in common than just an attraction to women. They'd had a nice conversation on the ride home from the restaurant…why shouldn't she text?

Maura inputs the digits into her phone, and when it instructs her to put in a name for the contact she types simply, "Jane."

 _Send message now?_

Maura bites her lip. Yes. She's going to do it.

 _Hi, Jane._ She types. _It's Maura_.

The response is immediate. _Maura! I was just thinking about you_.

Maura curls her feet underneath her in her chair, tucking a piece of stray hair behind her ear and resisting the urge to type, _you were?_

She holds the phone in both hands, trying to think of a more suitable response, when it buzzes again, with a new message.

 _I'm sorry again for ruining your first Hibachi experience. Usually it doesn't end in a brawl. Just many take out boxes and a sense of lingering regret the next morning._

Maura laughs out loud.

 _Good to know,_ she types back, surprised at how easy it is to reply. _I'll have to try again._

This time Jane takes a little longer to reply. Maura watches her indecision with a mixture of excitement and apprehension.

 _Try hibachi? Or hanging out with us again?_

Maura grips the phone very tightly. _Both._ she types.

 _Cool,_ Jane replies. _I hear the key in the lock. Time to go face the music._

Maura chuckles. _Good luck, Jane. Good night._

 _Night_.

Maura replaces her phone on the coffee table, but she's barely even picked up her textbook before it is ringing again.

This time, the number is one she doesn't recognize.

"Hello?"  
"Hi," a male voice says. "Maura? It's Garrett."

"Oh!" she is surprised, the night ended in chaos, and Maura isn't quite sure how Garrett managed to track her down, though she's not sure she minds either.

"I got your number from the school directory," he says, as though he's read her mind. "I hope it's not too late to call?"

"No, not at all. Did you get home all right?"

"I should be asking you that," he says, "I'm truly sorry for the way things turned out this evening. I haven't known Joey for all that long, and this was my first encounter with that hooligan, Jane…I should have picked a more civilized group of people for our first date."

Maura frowns. "No apology necessary," she says. "And Joey was quite out of line, saying those things to Jane."

"He would have finished it sooner if he'd known she was the fighting type," Garrett says dismissively. "But that's beside the point. I'm calling to ask if I can see you again, Maura. Can I have a do over?"

Despite his words about Jane, Maura finds herself nodding. He hadn't been so bad, after all. Maybe a little bit stuck up, but he'd laughed at her joke about composers, and he'd understood all her references. He was not unattractive or rude.

What reason was there to hesitate.

"Maura?"

Why is she hesitating.

"Maura are you there?"

"Yes," she says, decision made. "Yes, I'd like to see you again, too."

…

* * *

…

 **You guys, you know I love rizzles as much as the next person, right? But I reject, utterly reject, the idea that previous gfs, bfs, whatever, have to be total douches just because they're not the right pairing. Jenna's a cool chick (despite her cousin). You're supposed to like her. okay? You can hate Garrett if you want. He's still kind of an entitled ass.**

 **Lktwh13, it appears you feel the same as Maura about hibachi at this point. :) IsaBabisa, you came close with your guess about shrimp flying through the air. just carrot this time. And Jane's fist.**

 **Anyway. I hope you're enjoying this still. two more days, two more chapters.**

 **or three. I wrote an epilogue because I suck….**

 **you in?**

 **see ya'll tomorrow**

 **happy reading**

 **tc**


	4. Chapter 4

Jane sees Joey Grant at training the next day, but she does as her girlfriend has ordered her and pretends he does not exist. She gets a bit of satisfaction when she hears his buddies making fun of his black eye, but it is incomplete since she cannot tell them where he got it.

Maura had been right about Jenna. She'd gotten home from dropping Joey at his apartment, and although she'd been upset, it wasn't at all what Jane had been expecting.

"You have to learn to control that," Jenna had said, sinking onto the couch next to her. "I know that he's an asshole. I _know._ But he winds you up because he knows he can, Jane."

"He's never called you a dyke," Jane said, only half pouting when she realized that she was not in deep trouble. "It's like you're this entire person and I'm just the lesbian that's sucking your soul out."

"I wasn't aware lesbians could do that," Jenna had said dryly.

"You know what I mean."

Jenna sighed, rubbing a temple the way she did when she was torn between options. "You did a good thing, sticking up for Maura," She'd said then, looking a little disgruntled at giving in. "But violence isn't the way we solve things."  
"Yes, Ms. Smart," Jane had said, using the same sing-songy voice she knew Jenna's students did. "You're so smart, Ms. Smart."

And finally, Jenna laughed. And the evening was forgotten by the time Jane turned out the light.

Now, Jane hurries down the stairs of the precinct, phone to her ear, listening to the ringing on the other end. Finally the machine picks up, and Jane swears under her breath, waiting for the beep.

"Hi! This is the Rizzoli residence, none of us are able to come to the phone right now, so if you leave a message after the tone, we'll return your call as soon as possible."

The tone sounds, and Jane takes a breath.  
"Pop," she says, louder than she'd like to on a busy street in the middle of the day. "Pop, are you there? Frankie called me, he's at the LeBeauf job and you're nowhere. If you're there pick up."

She waits a beat, and the phone does indeed pick up, although it is not her father who answers.

"Janie?"

"Ma," Jane says, holding in her groan of frustration. "Is Pop there?"

Her mother pauses before answering. "Yes," she says, and her voice is lower, like she's trying not to be heard. "He's not feeling well, Jane. I don't think he can go to that job with Frankie."

Jane stops walking, ducking into an overhang so that she can speak her mind with minimal witnesses.

"It's _Pop_ 's job, Ma," she hisses. "Frankie's his employee. And he's at this job all by himself. He can't do it alone."  
Her mother pauses again, and Jane knows what's coming before it happens. "Can't you maybe swing-"

"No, Ma!" Jane says, frustrated. "No! I can't I'm on my way to my actual job. You know the one I was actually hired for? The one I use to help support myself and my girlfriend." She can't help it. She throws it in because she knows it will get her mother off the phone more quickly. "Get him up. Tell him not to leave his son out to dry. That's Frankie's money on the line too, Ma."

"He's sick, Janie."

"He's hungover," she growls. "Give him some aspirin and tell him to be a man."

"Jane!"

"I gotta go, mom. Can't you just-"

"That's fine. We'll be fine." Her mother says curtly, and then, like a well aimed knife to her daughter's soft spot, "bye, Jane. Don't work too hard."

The line disconnects, and Jane pulls the phone from her face to look at it, disbelieving.

She steps back out onto the sidewalk, shaking her head, and takes only a couple of steps before someone behind her calls her name.

"Jane!"

She turns, looking around, and her eyes pass Maura Isles twice before she realizes that she is the one who has called her name. She hurries towards Jane, looking small in comparison to all the other pedestrians.

"Hey," Jane says, surprised, "Maura, hi!"

Maura reaches her, looking little bit out of breath, but happy to have caught her. "Hi! Frost told me you'd be getting out about now, so I rushed over from class. I'm glad to have caught you."

Jane can't help but smile back at her. "Yeah?"

"Yes," Maura answers, and for a moment they just stand there, looking at each other, until Jane laughs.

"So, what can I do for you, Maura?" she prompts, and there's that blush that Jane has come to expect. She grins wider.

"Sorry!" Maura apologizes, eyes wide. "I just…last night, I realized that when we texted, I never actually thanked you, as was my intention."

"Thank me for what?" Jane asks, gesturing that they should move out of the way of the flow of people.

"For standing up for me at Osaka," Maura says like this should be obvious.

Jane looks at her, searching her expression for any ulterior motive, but all she can see is the same open earnestness that she'd seen the previous night.

"You came all the way down here from BU to thank me for causing a scene and getting us kicked out of a restaurant?"

Maura blinks. "Yes," she says finally, resolute. "I did. It was perhaps not the best way to go about it, but…" she pauses here, choosing her words carefully. "It meant a great deal to me, because I felt that you cared about how I was treated."

"Of course I do," Jane says immediately. "Joey was being an ass."

"To you far more than to me," she says with a frown.

"I'm used to it," Jane shrugs. "He's my girlfriend's cousin. He's in my class at the academy…I just have to man up, I guess."

"Woman up," Maura says.

Jane laughs.

"Can I buy you coffee?" Maura asks suddenly, and then more slowly, "I mean, would you let me get you a cup, as a thank you?"

Jane glances at her watch. "I have to be at work in 25," she says, genuinely sorry. "But, if you want to walk with me, we can stop at Peet's on the way?"

Maura nods, looking delighted, and Jane's conscience nudges her slightly. "But we'll go dutch on the coffee, okay? You coming all the way down here is thanks enough."

Maura nods again, though this time she looks like she's holding back an entire soliloquy. "Of course," she says.

They have gone almost three full blocks when Maura speaks again. "How is your brother?"

Jane raises an eyebrow. "Frankie? He's doing okay. He's out on a job right now."

"And Tommy? Have there been any developments with his charges?"

Jane almost trips. She whips her head around to look at Maura. "What?"

"I'm sorry," Maura says at once. "I just…I remembered you told me he'd been arrested the day we met. I can imagine it's a hard thing to be going through."

"You remember that?" Jane asks, still trying to regain her equilibrium.

"Yes," Maura says, looking confused. "You told it to me."

"No, I mean, I know I did," Jane stammers. "I just didn't think you'd…" she trails off, and then picks up again with a smirk. "I didn't think you were listening, being so distracted by my biceps and all."

There, she's made Maura flush down into her collar. She laughs, and when Maura looks around at her, still at a loss for words, she pokes her with an elbow until she joins in.

"Touche," Maura says softly.

"Thanks for remembering, anyway," Jane says after a moment. "His bail has been set at 50,000. Mom's seeing about putting up the house, God help us all."

"Did you tell her you thought it was a bad idea to do so?" Maura asks this without any trace of embarrassment. Jane glances at her out of the corner of her eye.

"Um…no…I - we don't really talk about this kind of thing." She points up ahead at the sign for the coffee shop. "There's Peet's, you still want that coffee?"

"Yes," Maura says with a smile. "If you have the time. What does Jenna say?"

Jane raises an eyebrow. "About what?"

"Tommy."

Jane shoves a hand into her jeans pocket, fishing around for some cash. "Um…she's kind of checked out of the whole thing. He was a jerk to her, _is_ a jerk to her, a lot. I don't really bring him up around her."

They reach the door of the coffee shop, and Jane turns to hold the door open, and finds that Maura is looking at her intently.

"What?" she asks nervously.

Maura shakes herself a little. "Nothing," she responds, but as she passes Jane, she puts her hand on her forearm for a quick moment. "That just sounds very lonely."

…

Jane is in a daze the rest of the afternoon, and in into the evening. She and Maura part ways in front of the mechanic's shop where she works, and Maura turns and waves at the corner before disappearing out of sight.

They'd walked from the coffee shop in relative silence, Jane only able to come up with one question. _Did you hear from Garrett?_

Maura had, and they planned to go out again. Jane had said she was glad.

She didn't feel glad.

Work in the shop had passes by quickly without Jane really noticing where the time goes. She

rotates the tires on a man's beamer twice, and has to give him a discount for going over the allotted time. She takes it out of her own pay so she doesn't have to report it in the log, but the owner, a tall butch woman named Cassidy, notices her preoccupation anyway.

"Lady trouble?" she asks, when Jane clocks out.

"Uh," Jane says. "I don't think so."

"HAH!" Cass has a laugh louder than a broken muffler. "Go home and see if she thinks so. Full report tomorrow."

Jane shakes her head, smiling. "See ya, Cass."

"Don't over rotate, Rizzoli!"

Cass doesn't miss a trick.

She gets home after Jenna does, and finds her girlfriend grading tests at the dining room table next to an open box of pizza.

"I dropped an entire slice onto Roberto's test…but I added two points so he'd get a 76 instead of a 74. Do you think that's fair?" Jenna doesn't look up as Jane grabs a slice and sits down in the chair next to her.

"If that were how my teachers had operated, I would have gone around knocking things out of their hands," Jane answers. "Way more than fair."

Jenna nods satisfied, and gestures to a test that is taped to the wall, ostensibly to dry out. The whole first page looks like a paper towel used to mop up a murder scene.

"Nice, Jen," Jane snorts.

"I was starving. These kids make me hungry. They make me sad. Ugh, they make me _angry._ "

Jane watches as she swipes the purple pen down through a question.

"Why don't you teach older kids? High school or something."

Jenna makes a face like she's smelling garbage. "Hormones," she says, horrified. "No way. I'd rather walk them to the bathroom, than find them having sex in it."

Jane chokes on her pizza. "How much longer?" she asks. "Is it grading you can do with the TV on?"

"Hour or so," Jenna says absently. "And yes."

Jane reaches for the remote, but her conscience, wide awake today, pokes her again and she turns back to her girlfriend.  
"I saw Maura today," she says, wondering if she sounds casual. How does casual sound? Why is she worrying about this?

"Oh yeah?" Jenna sounds only mildly interested.

"Yeah, we walked from the precinct to Cass' together. Stopped to get some coffee."

"Nice," Jenna says. "She seemed like a really nice person."

Jane nods, realizes that Jenna isn't looking at her. "Yeah. And I didn't fuck things up too bad for her."

"Badly."

Jane rolls her eyes. "Well I didn't. Garret asked her out again. So that's good, I suppose."

Jenna looks up, biting her lip. "Do you think she likes him?" she asks.

Jane shrugs. "I dunno," she says, feeling inexplicably awkward. "I would guess so. Why?"

"It would be fun to double date, don't you think? I liked Maura, and she seemed…" Jenna pauses here, looking down at the paper she's grading. Jane sighs. Her girlfriend will often attempt to have a conversation while she's also doing something school related, and it never ends well. True to form, Jenna scoffs, previous conversation completely forgotten. "Listen to this," she says, waving the paper around. "I asked, what is one of the main themes in 'The Giver?' This kid wrote: boredom. I'm bored out of my life." Jenna looks up, outraged. "Who doesn't like 'The Giver?'"

Jane rolls her eyes. "We have had this conversation at _least_ thirty times, Jen. _I_ didn't like 'The Giver' when you made me read it three months into our relationship, and I didn't like it any more when you made me re-read it last month. Can we focus for a second?"

But Jenna is looking back down at the paper. "hmmm?"

"You broke off mid sentence," Jane reminds her. "You said that Maura seemed…and then you were insulted by a ten year old and you lost it."

"Nine,"Jenna mumbles, but she looks up, thinking. "Oh, I just thought she looked so overwhelmed. Like she'd never been invited to something like that before."

Jane considers this. Now that she thinks about it, Maura had seemed a bit out of her depth the entire time, not just during the carrot incident.

"She texted me," Jane says without thinking about it. "After the whole thing, before you got home."

"What about?" Jenna sounds interested, but not suspicious. Not that she should be, Jane reminds herself. She doesn't have anything to hide.

"Just to say hi, I think…we rode the T a couple stops together. I apologized again."

Jenna nods, dropping her head back down to the test in front of her. "That's what I mean. I think we should start including her in our stuff.I think she'd have a good time."

"And Garrett too?" Jane says, a little reluctantly. "He seemed like kind of a dick. He could totally see how uncomfortable she was, and he was pressuring her too."

Jenna looks up at this. "Well, someone under the influence of my cousin," she begins. "Let's invite them both," her face lights up with an idea. "Oh! I know. I'll invite Amber, the other fourth grade teacher at Prep, and you invite Frost."

Jane makes a face. "Frost would _hate_ Amber. She's always saying things in French just so we know that she speaks it, and last time we went out, she followed the waiter into the back to make sure her water didn't come from the tap."

Jenna grins. "Exactly," she says. "So Maura and Frost, and Amber and Garrett? Then we can dump the two duds and hang out with our awesome new couple friends."

Jane laughs, and she leans forward and kisses her girlfriend on the temple.

"Very tricky," she says, trying to convince herself that she could be down with this plan too. "I thought I was the brains of this outfit."

Jenna looks up, serious. "You are the brawn, Rizzoli. It proves my point that you don't know that."  
…

…

Almost a month later, they schedule a dinner party a their apartment. Jenna has finally gotten Amber on board, and Frost, Maura and Garrett have all RSVP'd in the affirmative.

Jenna is over the moon excited. The combination of their first "real dinner party as a couple that lives together," and the plan "to rid beautiful, smart Maura of that pestilential toad Garrett," is almost too much for her.  
She gets home early on Friday and when Jane walks through the door, she nearly tackles her to the ground.

"What the hell?" Jane laughs, shaking the hand that has gotten slammed against the wall as she tried to keep her balance.

"Take your shoes off!" Jenna demands. "I just vacuumed, swiffered, wet mopped and then swiffered again. Don't you dare mess up these floors."

Jane slips out of her shoes, making sure to stay on the doormat.

"Now put them in the hall," Jenna directs, and Jane salutes before obeying.  
"Don't you think, perhaps, you are overdoing this, just a little bit?" she says, heading down the hall in her sock feet. "I mean, we hang out with these guys all the time, minus Amber."

"Right," Jenna calls back, and Jane can hear her moving around in the kitchen, "But never here, as the hosts! _And_ if everything goes well, we won't ever have to see Garrett Fairfield again."

"Until Amber makes you Maid of Honor," Jane calls back, chuckling at the groan this elicits.  
"You bite your tongue!"

Jane strips off her clothes and pulls a fresh pair of jeans and a button up out of the closet. It's true, they've been seeing a lot of Garrett and Maura lately. She and Jenna had done two dinners with the other couple, and both times they'd talked about nothing else for the rest of the evening.

 _He cut up her food. What is she a child?_

 _Did you hear when he said, 'Oh, what Maura means to say is…_

 _Ugh. I feel like I should go tape his picture into the dictionary under pretentious_

 _And asshole._

Yes, there was no denying that Garrett needed to go, if for no other reason than the fact that he didn't deserve anyone even close to Maura Isles.

But Jane has also had coffee with Frost and Maura, and with just Maura alone, twice. And the more that they hang out, the less she can really see the blonde with Frost either.

Now, as Jane finishes doing the buttons on her shirt, she reaches over and pulls her cell phone out of the back pocket of her discard pair of pants, pulling up the text messages from Maura that they've exchanged over the last couple days. She scrolls through them, looking for the one message in particular that she keeps coming back to.  
She and Maura had texted for almost two hours on the day her little brother decided to enter a guilty plea, and take the deal that was offered to him: five to seven years.

Jenna had said that it served him right, and Jane didn't disagree, it was just that…it was just…

 _He's your brother._ Jane finds the batch of texts that she's looking for. _He's your brother regardless of his crimes. I can't imagine how you must feel._

 _Thanks Maura. Thank you for listening to me moan about this._

 _That is what friends are for, Jane._

She hasn't lied. She hasn't even hidden anything. Jenna knows they've hung out. She knows that they text. So why does she get a weird, twisted feeling in her stomach every time she thinks of this set of messages, half pleasure half aching guilt.

 _We're doing an in depth study of the back and shoulders in my Body in Motion anatomy class. I have some tips and stretches for you the next time I see you. Remind me._

This message caused a reaction audible enough that Cass had looked up from under the hood of a Mercedes and said. "You'll see her in three hours, Rizzoli, Christ. Stop sexting."

She'd showed the text to Jenna, half wishing it would make her mad, that she would demand they stop texting each other immediately. But Jenna had just laughed. "She'll probably try to make you do Yoga or something. She's pretty adorable."

The blind trust, her girlfriend's inability to see Maura as anything but a cutie who needed protection, like one of her fourth graders, makes Jane feverish with guilt.

"Hey!" Jenna's voice shakes her from her thoughts, and Jane realizes she is still sitting on the end of the bed, holding her phone. "What are you doing in there, sewing a shift? They'll be here any minute!"

Jane gets to her feet and heads back into the living room, arriving just as the doorbell rings. She takes a breath, glances at Jenna for the okay, and pulls the door open.

* * *

…..

…..

 **Oh my lady gaga, you guys. I am so excited for tomorrow. I think you will like it too…I mean, these guys have already had a successful dinner party, so one that's in the privacy of an apartment will surely end perfectly. Yep. Nothin to worry about.**

 **I know this is kind of a cliff hanger and I'm really sorrynotsorry. It's just that the dinner party and…the other thing that's going to happen, have to be from Maura's point of view.**

 **Annyway, I'm loving that you are all liking this. I think some of you even said you laughed which is what I'm going for this time. Laughter, not tears. Luvnot, you don't know that that's my whole plan. I think you'll like the wrap up though. sweetkid45, disappointing to hear (I assume you mean Garrett & Jenna), but thanks for your honesty. TVcrazed, I know the feeling. I want it to feel real, you know? In real life you don't just date potted plants (NOBLEGRACES) and wait for some divine sign when your right person shows up. You go into every relationship thinking, this might be it. There is always some sort of struggle when it ends. Jenna isn't just a place holder who gets tossed to the side. She's a real try at being happy. **

**Okay, okay. that's enough. Any more and I'll spoil my own story. This has been a great challenge for me, sticking to a schedule, putting something stylistically different out. thank you so much for your support!**

 **Two more days! Let's go!**

 **happy reading**

 **tc**


	5. Chapter 5

"Hey Maura!" Maura turns to see Barry Frost jogging towards her across the quad. She stops, waiting for him to catch up.  
"Barry," she says, when he pulls even with her. "How are you?"

He looks a little nervous, in her opinion, but she doesn't question him when he says "I'm doing okay, Maura, thanks. Hey. Can you sit for a minute?" he gestures to a row of little tables outside of the library they are passing. "I wanted to talk real quick?"

Maura nods, moving to the first available table and taking a seat. Barry sits down across from her, and he seems to be rehearsing his next sentence in his head before actually speaking.

"I just wanted to talk about the dinner party tonight," he says, not meeting her eyes, and Maura waits, but he doesn't go on.

"Can you still make it?" she asks after a couple beats of silence.

"Yeah," he answers, "I just…you're bringing Garrett?"

Maura nods. "Jenna invited us both," she says. "I think that they're fond of doing couples things with us," she pauses, not wanting to ruin the surprise if Barry doesn't know that they have invited a girl for him to meet.

"Yeah, they invited this girl named Amber," Barry says, and he doesn't look very excited about this prospect.

"I'm sure she's very nice," Maura says. "Jenna wouldn't pick someone she didn't like for you, Barry."

This doesn't seem to cheer him up. Maura replays the conversation in her head, trying to see where she went wrong, and to come up with another attempt.

"And…if you don't like her, Neither Jenna nor Jane are going to-"

"They're not bringing her for me," Barry bursts out.

Maura frowns. "What?"

Barry frowns. "Listen, Maura, we're friends, right? You consider me your friend, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Maura says immediately.

"Right," Barry nods, "So I would be a totally messed up friend if I didn't tell you what was going on. You don't need to be blindsided at a second dinner party, that's for sure."

Maura doesn't know what to say to this, so she just waits, her heart beating hard.

"Jane told me the plan is to bring Amber in the hopes that she would fall for Garrett," he says, looking down at his hands. "And then…hopefully you and I could…get together."

Maura lets this sink in. "Oh," she says. "I…Oh." She looks at Barry, not looking at her. "Oh," she says again. "Barry. Why didn't you tell me you felt that way?"

Barry looks up at her, eyes wide. "What?" he asks, "No! Oh, no! No it wasn't my idea. I like you a lot Maura, but I'm not into you romantically. Not that you're not attractive, or that-"

But Maura is laughing, relief flooding through her. "Shh," she says, reaching across the little table to pat his arm. "I feel the same way. Thank goodness." But she sobers, as the rest of the pieces of his story fall into place. "Why would they want Garrett and me to break up?" she asks, genuinely curious.

Frost hesitates. "Well," he rubs the back of his neck. "He's not very nice to you, Maura," he says finally. "He's kind of…pompous and…he speaks over you all the time."

Maura takes this in, feeling a mixture of gratitude and annoyance. "I am perfectly capable of choosing a suitable partner," she says. "As… _nice_ as it is that you all are concerned about me, I am not completely helpless."

"You're right," Frost says. "Jenna's coming from a good place, you have to know that. She doesn't mean to step on your toes. That's just Jenna."

Maura notices his omission, and cannot let it lie. "And Jane?" she asks tentatively, too interested in the answer to hide her wish to know. "What does Jane think of all this?"

Frost waits a long time before answering, and Maura sits as still as she possibly can, not wanting to wait any longer than she has to. "Jane wants you to be happy. She thinks the world of you."

Maura looks down at the table, unsure why this news makes her hands tingle.

Frost leans forward. "Maura," he says softly. "I know how you feel about her."

She doesn't look up at him. She shakes her head once. "I'm sure I haven't been very discreet about it," she says when she can get her voice under control.

Frost bites the inside of his cheek. "Well Garrett can't see anything past the end of his own nose, so not there. And Jenna does not see anything she isn't led to. I think it's actually one of the reasons that Jane loves her."

Maura does look up at him now. "And Jane?" she makes herself ask the question.

Barry sighs heavily. "Jane sees more than anyone gives her credit for. Feels more too. She's deep, even if she'd never admit it, might even go so far as to deny it outright."

Maura opens her mouth to ask a more direct question, and then finds that she can't.

Barry seems to understand. "No matter what happens tonight, I got your back okay?"

She could hug him.

He beats her to it.

…

…

Garrett picks Maura up for the dinner party, and as they speed through the city, pushing yellow lights and ignoring speed limits signs. He talks most of the way there, and Maura listens with half an ear, gripping the arm rest tightly every time they careen around a corner. She makes a mental note to decline a return ride with him if he has even one alcoholic beverage.

…

Barry and Jenna's friend Amber are already there when she and Garrett arrive.

"Come in!" Jenna pulls the door to her apartment open with a big smile. She pulls Maura into a hug. "It's great to see you guys." Now that she is looking for it, Maura notices that the hug Jenna bestows upon Garrett is perfunctory at best.

Frost hugs her too, adding an extra squeeze so that she knows he has not forgotten their earlier chat.

Jane is sitting in the living room with the woman that Maura assumes must be Amber. She is tall and blonde curvy in the hips and the chest. She is wearing more make up than Maura would have thought possible, and when Barry is done greeting Garrett, she beckons him back over to her side, fixing him with a look that even Maura can decipher.

That is her first clue that the evening is not going to go well. It is pretty much all downhill from there. Amber is smitten with Barry. While they are all having Hors d'oeuvres in the living room, she tries to sit on his lap. By the time dinner rolls around, she is calling him "mon petit chat," though she pronounces it so atrociously that Maura winces every time. She catches Jane's eye on one such occasion, and the brunette turns away, laughing into her beer.

Now that it has been pointed out to her how overbearing Garrett is, she cannot stop noticing it. She manages, however, to serve herself at the dinner table, choose her own wine, and help herself to more macaroni salad half way through the meal, despite his not so subtle warning about her figure.

He chuckles as she helps herself anyway, earning an approving look from both Jane and Barry.

"We'll have to get you a new crop of friends, Maura," he says with a grin that borders on a leer. "I think these two are rubbing some butch off on you."

It is such a blatantly offensive statement, that for a moment, everyone around the table gawks at him, trying to decide if they'd heard correctly.

Amber laughs nervously and puts her hand on the back of Barry's neck. He shakes it away.

"That was a dig at our sexuality, Garrett?" Jane asks, looking over her beer bottle at him. She has that tight jawed, narrow eyed look that she had the night of Hibachi. Maura puts her napkin on the table.

Garrett squints at her, like he's much bigger and she is difficult to make out. "Well, not a dig, per say," He says, dripping condescension. "There's nothing wrong with bucking tradition, on the surface, but it does sort of call into questions a lot of other ethical questions that-"

"Be careful where you're treading, man," Barry interrupts, throwing Jane a glance. "You're a _guest_ here."

"You're saying it's a _choice_ ," Jenna says, as though she hasn't heard him. "You're saying people choose to be gay?"

"Not necessarily. I'm just saying that when women decide they're going to enter into a same sex relationship, it says something about what they want out of life."

"Yeah, not to be ordered around like a fucking dog," Jane snarls. "But that is also common human dignity that demands that, so…I'm still not sure what you're driving at."

Garret smiles placidly at her. "No," he says. "I wouldn't imaging that you could grasp what I'm saying, Jane."

"I have a half-sister that identifies as bisexual," Jenna says loudly, over Jane's sputter swear. "She dated men and woman. She had a girlfriend, actually up until a couple months ago. But things got sour I guess when she decided to drop out of school. Tell me…does she want tradition half the time and savagery the next?"

Maura's stomach does a somersault, and she nearly gags. Jane seems to be the only one who notices.

"You're not exactly disproving my point," Garrett says with a little laugh. "Bad choices beget bad choices. That seems to be the moral of that story."

"I'm sorry," Jenna says, and she looks more furious than Maura has ever seen her. "You're going to judge my sister, who you don't even know, because she dropped out of school to go to a country where people need _help_? You are a piece of work."

" _You_ brought her up. I just pointed out that it was a bad example." He sighs like he's been laboring under the effort of teaching them. "I'm just saying, _Maura_ , that when you're with me, I'm more than happy to call the shots."

Maura clears her throat. "Thank you, Garrett," she says coldly. "I'll make sure to consider that the next time you invite me somewhere.

Silence falls. Amber laughs nervously and reaches out to pat Barry's arm. "We're all friends here," she says. "Though some of us long to be more."

Jane swallows wrong at this, and she turns from the table to cough into her napkin.

"So…Jenna, where did your sister go?" Frost asks, dodging Amber as she tries to feed him a piece of macaroni salad off of her fork. He is trying to get the conversation going again, that is the kind of person he is.

But it is the wrong question. And it is Maura who answers, without thinking. "Brazil," She says, before Jenna can, and now everyone is looking at her. Staring.

"How did you…" Jenna asks, looking puzzled. "Did Jane?"

Maura shakes her head. "Your half-sister is Annika?"

Jenna smiles, "Do you know her? She's a couple years younger than us, but-"

"She's my ex," Maura says. "Annika's my ex-girlfriend."

…

There's a knock on the bathroom door, and Maura's hands go to her cheeks, wiping away stray tears. The fight seems to have died down now. She'd heard the door slam, and assumed that was Garrett, storming out.

Jane isn't yelling anymore, and neither is Jenna. When she'd escaped down the hall, the two of them had been about to turn on each other, Jane's defense of Maura to Garrett tipping Jenna into fury at a perceived slight against her sister.

 _You don't get to dictate her life, you self-serving prick. She deserves way better than you. You deserve. You deserve Amber, for fuck's sake! She'll hump a cow and she's got about the brains of one._

 _And my sister didn't deserve her either? Did you not just hear what Maura said? Where the hell did she go, anyway?_

The knock comes again. Maura's hands are still on her cheeks.

"Maura?" It's Jane. Her voice is just above a whisper. "Are you in there?"

"I'll be right out," Maura calls, cursing her voice for cracking on the last word. "Just give me a moment."

"Are you okay?"

Maura opens her mouth to say that she's fine, but she catches the breath wrong in her chest, and what comes out is half a hiccup and a little bit of a moan.

The door opens, and Jane steps in. She looks flushed, like she's still getting over anger. But when she sees Maura, her face dissolves into gentle concern. Maura wonders if this change happens when they text. She wonders if she has the power to take the fight out of this woman. She wonders how her clavicle would feel under her hand.

"Maura," Jane drops down onto her knees so that they are eye level. "I'm so sorry," she says. "I-"

"Did you know that my ex was Jenna's half-sister?"

"No," Jane says it with such quiet intensity that there is no room for it to be a lie. "Maura I swear I had no-"

"Were you going to set me up with Barry? That was your plan?"

Jane sits back on her heels. She doesn't answer, but she doesn't look away either.

"I don't like Barry romantically," she says. "You don't have any right to meddle in my relationships."

"You're right," Jane says simply.

"Even If you could see that he was an arrogant, homophobic, mouth breathing-" tears come to her eyes and she chokes up and cannot continue.

Jane reaches out and put the pad of her thumb against Maura's cheek, catching a tear.

"Don't," she whispers. "He's not fucking worth it."

Maura presses her face into the touch, she can't help it. She closes her eyes, and so she doesn't see Jane lean in. She only knows that all of a sudden they are kissing, that Jane's hand sliding to the base of her skull.

Maura's hands find the small of Jane's back, and she pulls, forcing the other woman closer, so they are pressing against each other. Jane makes a hard, low sound in the back of her throat, and Maura gasps as a wave of heat crashes over her.

Nothing has prepared her for this. She's kissed people before, men and women, and some of them were really great. Some of them were amazing.

None of them compare to this.

"Stop," Maura barely gets the word out. She doesn't want it to ever end, not ever, but her hands are drifting towards the bottom of Jane's shirt, and she knows that if she feels skin, everything is over.  
"Stop," she says again, and Jane pulls away from her, opening her eyes.

Jane stares at her lips, blinking dazedly when Maura reaches up and detaches her hand from the back of her head.

"They'll check on us." It is all that Maura can think of to say, despite the shadier implications.

"Do you remember that night we stayed up and watched that true crime documentary?" Jane is still staring at her mouth, and Maura can't quite make out her expression.

"Yes," she says. It had been one of the best nights of Maura's life, trading texts with Jane while they watched the same show in separate apartments. She'd never felt closer to anyone, not even Annika when they were in the same room.

"You texted that quote about reason, remember? You told me you knew I lay up nights thinking about injustice, and you thought it would comfort me."

"Reason is not automatic," Maura breathes, remembering the way it had felt to type the words into her phone. "Those who deny it, cannot be conquered by it."

Jane nods. "How did you know?" She asks, and she moves closer again. Maura nearly whimpers. "How did you know I stayed up nights thinking about stuff like that?"

 _Because I know you. Because I pay attention. Because I adore you, and I've only scratched the surface._

"I guessed," Maura says.

"You guessed," Jane whispers, and she leans closer again. "Maura."

But Maura pulls away. "Jenna," she says, like this is a secret code. "Jenna is waiting for you."

Jane jerks away from her like she's been slapped, and Maura immediately wishes she could take the words back. The spell is broken. Reality has returned.

Jane looks like if she had the ability, she would remove her own heart from her chest.

"Oh, my God," Jane turns from her, she puts both hands against the sink like she's bracing herself. "Oh, my God," she says again, and Maura follows her line of vision to a cup on the edge of the little counter, two toothbrushes nestled inside.

"Jane," Maura says. She moves forward, but the other woman side steps her, hand over her mouth, eyes a little wild.

"I…I have to go back out there," she says. "I-are you okay?" She asks this as though she is the one who has done the hurting. "Maura?"

"Go," Maura says. "Go, I'll be out in-I'll be there in a minute."

Jane leaves without another word, shutting the door quietly behind her, and it is Maura's time to lean against the sink, trying to gather herself. She stands there, focusing on stopping the shaking of her hands. Her brain feels numb, though her body feels fully awakened for the first time. Jane's hands on her, her lips. She shudders, and her hands start to shake again. _No,_ she tells herself. _NO_ , she tells her body, and when her hands cease again, she does a cursory check in the mirror before heading back towards the party.

There's not much party left. Maura enters the living room to find Jenna, Barry, and Jane standing near the remains of the board game. Garrett and Amber are not there.

"I-I'm sorry for causing such a scene." It's all she can think to say.

"No-" Jane begins, but a look from Jenna silences her, and she stops talking, looking sick to her stomach.

 _She couldn't have already confessed…could she?_ Maura doesn't think she was that far behind Jane coming out of the bathroom, but…

"Garrett left," Jenna says, and she doesn't sound apologetic. She sounds totally neutral. Maybe a little disappointed.

"I'll walk out with you, Maura," Barry says. He looks shell shocked, but steadfast.

"What happened to Amber?" Maura asks.

"She," Frost almost smiles. "She was less than thrilled that I insisted on waiting for you." Apparently the need for discretion has long passed.

"Okay," Maura says, and she gathers her coat from the back of a dining table chair. Neither Jane nor Jenna look at her as she and Barry head toward the door.

"Th-thank you," she stutters, turning back, with the front door half open. "I…Thank you and, I'm so, so sorry."

The door shuts behind them, and Maura puts her hands over her face, holding her breath so she doesn't cry. Barry puts his hands on her shoulders. "Hey," he says quietly. "Hey…this isn't your fault."

From inside the apartment, Jenna's voice rises, angry. "-just going to stand up for her no matter what? My sister-"

" _Half_ -sister," Jane, lower but holding her own completely. "Half-sister that you call flighty and self-centered."

"She said her ex was cold, that she didn't care about her at all. She said-"

"She _lied_!" Jane says, and Maura catches her breath. Part of her is elated to hear Jane stand up for her, the other half remembers Jane's face when she'd realized what they'd done. That half wants to shake her. _What are you doing? Don't stand up for me!_

"Maura," Barry's voice is urgent. "We should go. We are not going to want to listen to this fight."

But Maura does not have any control over her legs at the moment. She just stands there as Jenna starts to yell again, as her voice breaks with the beginnings of her tears. Annika used to cry when she was angry too.

"So you're there for her. You're there for Maura no matter what. Garrett goes after her, and you're there. Annika's a liar, because there's no way _Maura_ had any part in the break up. She's perfect. She's a saint. Listening to your problems in the middle of the night. Pretending to be interested in your endless cop stories. Oh my God, I don't believe I was so-"

Barry pulls her forward, away from the door, so Jane's answer is lost in the shuffling of her feet and her sharp intake of breath.

But Jenna's voice remains audible, even as Maura finally gets her feet moving underneath her.

" _I_ love you, Jane Rizzoli. I _never_ pretended that I was anything other than what I am. I never denied you anything you asked for. If we didn't have the level of emotional intimacy you wanted it was because you _NEVER. ASKED ME FOR IT."_

Barry drags Maura into the elevator, and when she starts to cry, he pulls her head onto his shoulder, comforting, whispering.

"This is not your fault."

…

* * *

…

They meet at Peet's. Maura arrives and Jane is already there, sitting bent over her coffee at a little table in the back. She looks up when Maura joins her, and she looks exhausted. There are deep circles under her eyes, and her hair looks like it has been living in that ponytail for several days. She looks like she has been awake for the entire year they have been out of contact.

Frost had been the one to ultimately cajole her into agreeing to the meeting. "She's not great," he'd said. "I know whatever happened between you two in the bathroom that night is still eating at her. She's spending way too much time on this cold case, the murder of three couples while she was still in school. She thinks she can find the guy, even though he's been dormant forever. Can you just…hear her out?"

So here she is, and God, it's good to see Jane again. Even though she looks like hell.

"Jane," Maura wants to touch her, any part of her, just to make sure she's real.

"Hey, Maura," she _sounds_ exhausted. "Thanks for meeting me here."

There is an awkward pause. Jane fiddles with her coffee cup, and Maura searches for something to say.

"I hear you are officially a police officer now," Maura says, trying to add some excitement to her voice. "Barry told me. Congratulations." Jane smiles weakly, but doesn't seem to have the energy to respond. "You know he's thinking of going into police work when he graduates next spring."

Jane laughs, but it looks like it hurts her chest. "Try and talk some sense into him before then, okay?"

Maura smiles. "I think he'd be very well suited to it."

"How's Med School going?" Jane changes the subject abruptly, but Maura doesn't call her on it. Whatever she's come for, Maura wants to give it to her. She's happy to follow where Jane leads.

"It's going very well," she says. "I think I'm leaning toward ER, or surgery as my specialty."

Jane nods, but it is clear she's not really listening. Maura allows the silence to sit for a bit. She had thought that when she saw Jane again for the first time in so long, her need to have the answers to her questions would overwhelm everything else. _Are you still with Jenna? How is Frankie? Tommy? Do you think about that kiss, still? Do you think about me?_

But she finds her only desire is to sit across from Jane, and to let things happen in their own time. "You look," she starts, but then hesitates.

Jane's laugh is more genuine this time. "Like shit. I know."

"I was going to say, like you are under a tremendous amount of pressure."

Jane looks up at her. "You look gorgeous," she says simply. And then, like this sentence has been a dam, blocking everything else she wanted to say, "It has been a rough year. The Academy was a walk in the park in comparison. Frankie quit the moving business and Dad lost the company. Ma had to get a job…and I have missed you."

And Maura doesn't have to even ask the question. She knows the answer from the plea in Jane's voice. From the way she averts her eyes at the end of her last sentence.

She is still with Jenna.

"I've missed you too," Maura says, though there are the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "I was wondering," she says, and Jane looks back at her, waiting. "I was wondering if we might…start over."

Jane swallows. "Start over?"

"Yes," Maura steels herself for the right decision. "That night…at the dinner party. I-"

But Jane cuts her off, speaking quickly. "That was my fault," she says. "I think about that night all the time. I'm so sorry, Maura, for everything."

"For kissing me?" it slips out. She needs to know the answer.

Jane looks down at the table, jaw working. "No," she says thickly. "I'm not sorry for that."

Maura leans forward. "But you love Jenna, still." It's not a question, but Jane nods anyway. A tear falls onto the plastic top of her coffee.

Maura is reminded of Frost, when he told her that Jane had graduated and was getting her officer's badge. _She graduated top, and the captain told the audience that she had the strongest sense of justice he'd seen in a long while, but that's wrong. She just…_ _is_ _justice. That's all._

"Let's start over," she says again. "Let's go back to a time before that night, when we were just friends. I was very happy with being just your friend, Jane?"

"You don't think about it?" Jane runs a hand through her hair. "You don't think about that night, ever?"

"I-"

"You don't think about kissing me?" Jane looks into Maura's face imploringly. "You don't think about that kiss?" she waits for the answer, and Maura makes the decision right then. She will keep this woman in her life.

"No," she says. "I don't think about it anymore." The lie causes her skin to burn almost beyond her ability to bear it, but she keeps her hands in her lap.

Jane sits back in her seat, and one final tear drips down her nose. Maura lets her be there for a moment, and then she pushes back the chair, standing up. Jane watches her, but makes no move to stop her. She has the absolution she came for. Maura hopes that if she can believe she's done Maura no harm, if she can believe that she can make it up to Jenna, then neither of them have to lose anything.

"You get some sleep, Jane," she says quietly. "I mean it."

"You think we can start over?" She asks, as Maura buttons her coat.

"Yes," Maura says, and she reaches out and puts her hand on Jane's shoulder before heading towards the door. "My number hasn't changed."

She's waiting for the bus on the curb when Jenna appears outside of Peet's. She steps out of a taxi, pulling her jacket around her, and turning away from the wind. She looks up suddenly, like she can feel Maura's eyes on her, and for a moment they look directly at each other.

Jenna's expression is difficult for Maura to comprehend. She doesn't look angry, or surprised to see her there, and it occurs to Maura that Jane, fairness embodied, had told her girlfriend where she was going. They stare at each other until the bus pulls up, settling down to let her on. Maura nods at Jenna once, and then turns and gets on board.

It is almost two weeks later, when Maura has just begun to consider the possibility that she made the wrong decision, that the text pings through.

 _Hey, Maura. There's a new true crime doc on channel 37. You wanna watch?_

Maura smiles.

She is already watching.

* * *

…

…

 **I'm not sayin a thing.**

 **See ya'll tomorrow for the last one.**

 **Happy reading**

 **tc**


	6. The End

_Maura comes home for Jane._

 _It's unclear who calls her, and no one can say how she gets back to the U.S. so quickly, but one minute Jane is sitting in an armchair in the hospital, her hands wrapped and throbbing with each beat of her heart, and the next that voice is saying her name, and those arms are wrapping around her._

 _Gently. Desperately._

 _Maura lets out a breath that is half scolding and fully relieved._

 _"You came back," Jane says, knowing her voice bears the telltale rasp of being nearly strangled to death. Maura doesn't answer, but she nods into the hug, into the crook of Jane's neck._

 _They sit for a long time, side by side, Maura with both her hands around one of Jane's bandaged ones. She'd nodded permission at the attending when Maura had asked to speak to him, and the two of them stood for a long time in the corner of the room, discussing her condition in hushed tones. Maura had raised her voice loud enough for Jane to hear only once. "No," she'd said, all new authority and knowledge. "That's unacceptable." She'd sounded like she was talking to a peer, even though the attending had to have fifteen years on her. Doctor's Without Borders had given her something new. Jane had turned her head to look at her, to see if this new thing was tangible._

 _Now, Jane keeps her head bowed so that her hair hides her face and the bruises that have bloomed purple on her cheekbones. She suspects Maura knows that they are there anyway._

 _"I knew something was wrong when you didn't write," Maura says quietly. "You missed Wednesday and Saturday in a row, and I knew something was wrong."_

 _Jane shakes her head once, and then stops because the movement hurts._

 _"But you're going to be okay." Confidence. Belief. "You'll have the best care in the city, and you're going to regain full use of them, I promise." She takes one hand off of Jane's to squeeze her knee. "I promise you, Jane."_

…

…

Frankie breaks her nose.

He goes up too hard for a lay up, and catches her with an elbow, and she feels something snap.

"Ow!" she turns away from him so that he won't see the tears that have sprung automatically to her eyes. "Jesus, Frankie!" she blinks rapidly, hands cupped around her nose. Already she can feel droplets of blood falling onto her palm.

"I'm sorry!" Frankie is saying, although there is such undisguised mirth in his voice, that she does not believe he means it.  
"Damn it!" She swears, pulling her hands away from her face and tipping her head back. "Did you break it?" She already knows the answer by the look on his face. "You jackass."

They head inside for some ice and a towel, Jane glancing nervously around for her mother. She would say something stupid about not roughhousing with her brother, and Jane is not in the mood for a lecture just now.

"I really am sorry," Frankie says as they lean against the sink, Jane with the ice pressed firmly to the bridge of her nose. "But you can't get in the way of the big man when he goes to the basket."

Jane snorts and immediately regrets that decision. She sprays blood all over her mother's dish towel, just as Angela Rizzoli appears around the doorframe.  
"Oh, Jane!" she cries when she sees her. "My good towel!"

"My _only_ nose," Jane mumbles.

"I have told you not to roughhouse with your brother…how many times have I said it? Honestly."

Yep. That's almost verbatim what Jane had anticipated. She shoots her brother a look, and he grimaces and looks at their mother.

"It was my fault, Ma. It was just basketball. It's on me."

"I know you didn't mean to maim your sister, Frankie. If she'd just learn to-"

But at that moment, Jane's cell phone goes off, and thanking God that she's back on duty, she picks it up, putting a finger up to silence her mother.

"Rizzoli."

Her heart is pounding so hard that it hurts, but it has nothing to do with her mother (still yelling) or her broken nose, or the fact that this is her first case since she was medically and psychologically cleared to be back in action.

She'd wanted to blow of steam with Frankie just a little bit longer, had wanted to feel the beginnings of that bone tiredness that crept in after a full two hours of physical exertion.  
Not only is this her first case after leave.

It's her first case with the new Chief Medical Examiner, Maura Isles.

…

…

 _"Ma, why did you stay with Pop for so long?" Jane spins in her chair so she can keep her mother in sight. "He lost the business, he drinks like a fish-"_

 _"Hey, don't talk about your father like that," Angela says, though the admonition seems automatic more than truly genuine._

 _"It's just facts, Ma!" Jane tries not to sound like she's whining. "Why did you stay with him when he's such…when he's such a dead beat."_

 _Her mother doesn't answer, but when Jane drops her eyes back down to the dining room table, she can feel her mother looking at the back of her head._

 _"Did you and Jenna break up?" she asks after a beat._

 _Jane can only nod. It's been almost three weeks and this is the first she's talking about it with another human.  
"When?" Her mother asks. _

_"A couple weeks ago."_

 _"Mmm," this sound usually means that her mother has a lot to say, but is going to have to be prodded in order to do so.  
Jane sighs. "What is it, Ma?" _

_"It's none of my business," her mother says with an air that means the exact opposite._

 _"Spit it out," Jane says wearily._

 _"Well, I'm not sure if you knew this, Janie, but I was never very fond of Jenna," her mother responds primly._

 _Jane laughs. She can't help herself. "You could have fooled me," she says sarcastically. Her mother looks insulted, and Jane raises an eyebrow. "Ma, I was with Jenna for four years. She came to exactly five Rizzoli dinners and four of them ended her crying and me telling you or Pop that you could forget having me as a daughter." The memories sober her a little. She looks up and is surprised to see that her mother looks a bit chagrined._

 _"Your father was not in his right mind," she says curtly. "And I…"_

 _"Hated that she was a woman." Jane has never stated it so boldly. It's always been an unspoken agreement that they would never delve too deeply into Jane's sexual preferences. Her mother would tolerate the occasional use of the word girlfriend, and the gender neutral way Jane talked about her dates, but they would never actually sit down and discuss why it seemed to bother Angela so much that her daughter was only attracted to women.  
Jane assumed it had to do with religion, with tradition, with the fact that Angela couldn't imagine having grandchildren if Jane didn't become impregnated by a man.  
Now, her mother sets down the spatula she's holding and comes to sit at the table next to her daughter. _

_"You know what, Jane," she says after a minute. "You're right."_

 _Jane nearly falls out of her chair. "Excuse me?"_

 _Her mother won't look at her, but she continues. "You're right. I didn't like the fact that you are attracted to women. I worried about what my friends at St. John's would say. I worried what the neighbors might think." She glances at Jane and then away. "And then your brother, gallant man that he is, said, 'Ma, if you're worrying about that, imagine how Jane must be feeling." Angela sighs. "And then I had a whole new spate of things to worry about and I hated it even more. I worried that the people at the church I brought you to your whole life, who watched you grow up, might start to hate you." Angela's eyes get a little misty, and Jane fiddles with the table mat, embarrassed._

 _"And I thought about what might happen to you at work, if other officers found out…and I hated it even more."_

 _Jane lets this sink in, sitting silently until something occurs to her._

 _"What changed your mind?" she asks, still not looking up at her mother._

 _"Hmm?"_

 _"You said you didn't like it. And you hated it…that implies that…" Jane swallows, "you've changed your mind."_

 _Angela smiles, and for a moment there's a familiar glint in her eyes. "It was a couple weeks after your father moved out," she says. "You came over to help me make gnocchi, but you got sidetracked by some texting messages on your phone. And then you stepped out to take a call."_

 _Jane slumps her shoulders. "Sorry," she says. "I didn't mean to be rude. I-"_

 _"I followed you out onto the porch, and I eavesdropped on your conversation," Angela says, and just like that, Jane's guilt is flipped to anger._

 _"Ma! What the hell!"  
Angela waves her away. "You lit up, Janie," she says with a smile. "You were animated and exuberant. You talked to that woman for nearly 15 minutes, and even when you seemed frustrated, you also looked happier than I've seen you in years. Truly, years, Jane. And it wasn't Jenna, either," her mother says. "That was my turning point." _

_Jane stares at her. She remembers the conversation, remembers that it had centered around the cracking of a murder case that had been driving her crazy. Her mother is right. It hadn't been Jenna on the phone._

 _"Who was that woman, Janie?" Angela asks coyly. "When do I get to meet her?"_

 _…_

 _…_

She has seen Maura Isles a handful of times since her permanent move back to the city. She'd quit Doctor's Without Borders shortly after Jane's run in with Hoyt, and taken a job as a Medical Examiner in Dorchester.

They'd had one painfully awkward lunch, and then a dinner at a wine bar that was so uncomfortable that they hadn't been in contact for almost a week afterwards.

Jane couldn't understand it. When Maura had been in Syria or Turkey or South Sudan, they had communicated regularly, texting and emailing whenever possible. And for much of that, Jane had been in a relationship.

But now that Maura is back in Boston, now that they are both available, both in the same field even, something holds Jane back. Something whispers to her in the middle of the night that nothing like this can last under the constant scrutiny of an intimate relationship. She would give too little, or give too much.

Maura would lose interest in her, or worse in their shared passions.

The sex would suck.

No. The sex wouldn't suck. But the times in between might.

Maura knows how she feels. She must. She hadn't asked Jane out again, and slowly they'd fallen back into a routine of texting, neither mentioning it when it turned to occasional phone calls.

When Maura got the call about becoming Chief Medical Examiner, she'd called Jane and asked her permission, thinly veiling it under the guise of "a warning, Jane Rizzoli. You are going to see much more of me if I take this job."

 _Are you okay seeing more of me? Can we stay this way if you see more of me? If we work together?_

And Jane, at the end of her medical leave, itching to get back to work, had answered. "If I don't have to come back to work with Pike, you can request the entire morgue be painted baby pink for all I care."

 _Let's give it a shot_.

…

…

" _I'm falling out of love with you, Jen."_

 _she doesn't mean for it to come out so harshly. They are in bed together. They have just had sex. It's the most inappropriate time to say this sentence, but she cannot help herself. She sits up in bed and wraps the sheet around her body, looking over her shoulder at Jenna, still laying there, hair a wild mass of auburn against the pillow. She props herself up on her elbows, not bothering to cover herself._

 _"The sex was that bad," she says flatly._

 _"No," Jane shakes her head. "No. The sex, like some cruel joke, is still really, really good. That's why I feel like such an asshole."_

 _"Because you're not in love with me anymore." The same flat tone. Jane looks at the quilt so that she doesn't have to look at her half naked girlfriend, which is still a really sexy thing to see._

 _"I'm still in love with you," she says._

 _Jenna sits up at this, dry eyed, and reaches for her t-shirt, pulling it over her head. "But you're falling out."_

 _Jane nods._

 _"Are you in love with her?" Jenna doesn't say Maura's name, but there's no mistaking who she means. It's been three months since Jane met Maura at Peet's. Since she got permission from her girlfriend to go and get some closure._

 _"No," Jane says. "No, it doesn't have anything to do with Maura."_

 _She is aware that this might be a lie._

 _Jenna nods. "So you're just falling out of love with me for no reason?" she asks. "C'mon, Jane. Don't break your honest streak now."_

 _"I'm working so hard," Jane says, running her hand through her hair. "I'm working really hard at work, and I don't feel like…I feel," she makes a vague gesture with her hands. "I feel like I'm working really hard here too. And it's…it's hard." Jane tries to think of more suitable synonyms for the word hard, but at the moment, nothing is coming to her._

 _"I-" she sighs, frustrated, trying to pull her thoughts together. But it is like trying to wrangle a thousand balloons._

 _"Relationships are work," Jenna says, and now her voice is emotional. "You don't get to walk away from them just because they get difficult. We didn't walk away from each other after everything that happened with Maura. What's different now?"_

 _"I'm drowning," Jane whispers. "I feel like I'm giving up pieces of myself."_

 _Jenna shakes her head, and now she has those angry tears. Now her shoulders shake just the tiniest bit when she breathes in._

 _"You are an ass," she says._

 _Jane nods, accepting this. "Yeah."_

 _"No," Jenna says fiercely. "You shouldn't get to do this to me. You shouldn't get to be the one who breaks up with me. That should be the thing I get to do."  
"What?" Jane hadn't thought further than her opening sentence at the beginning of the conversation, and the prospect of breaking up with Jenna catches her off guard.  
"I was going to tell you it's not working," Jenna says, wiping at her eyes. "Tomorrow. I was going to tell you to catch Maura before she goes to Syria, and tell her you love her. Tell her you want to be with her." _

_"I don't want to be with Maura," Jane says loudly. "God, I thought the last fucking year proved that to you."  
"Me too!" Jenna is really crying now. "And then out of the blue, you tell me you need to see her? Next thing I know you're texting her all the time. Telling her everything. Telling her things you never tell me." _

_"I needed to talk to her. Not talking to her was killing me."_

 _Jenna guffaws at this. "How am I supposed to take that?" she yells. "How is that supposed to make me feel?"_

 _Jane grits her teeth. "Jenna, look me in the eyes and tell me that you pay any attention when I talk about work."_

 _"I can't stomach your cases. You know that."  
"And when I need to talk about family?" _

_Jenna shrugs her shoulders. "What's to talk about? They all suck except for Frankie."_

 _Jane would get out of bed if she had any clothes on. Instead, she works very hard to keep her hands from bunching up the sheet. "Jenna," she says. "Can you hear yourself? You're accusing me of not talking to you, but you don't care about the two most important things in my life."_

 _Silence._

 _Jenna puts her hands over her face as Jane slouches back against the headboard.  
"It's not working," she says from between her fingers. _

_Jane closes her eyes. "It's not working."_

 _…_

 _…_

"Maura?" Jane sits up in bed, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Maura?"

The door to the guest room opens, and Maura puts her head in, looking concerned. "Jane?"

"I heard something," she says. "Something scraping."

Maura steps into the room. "It's just Bass," she says reassuringly. "Do you want to come check?"

"You're sure?"

"Yes," Maura waits a beat and then shuts the door, moving towards the bed. "Can I join you?"

Jane nods, scooting over, and the doctor settles herself next to Jane, linking her hands on her stomach. It is Jane's second night in Maura's spare room. It has been four days since they discovered that Hoyt has trained an apprentice. Of all the cases that could have fallen into her lap as her first back on the job.

It had to be Hoyt.

It had to be Hoyt, with Maura right there.

Jane sits, listening to the empty house until Maura puts a tentative hand on her arm, tugging gently. "It's Bass," she says again. "Lie down."

Jane showed up at her door yesterday evening, after a car backfiring outside her apartment had caused her to click the safety off her gun and double check the locks.

She'd sat in her house, frozen on her couch, for nearly two hours trying to work up the nerve.

 _Can I come over?_ She hadn't felt brave enough to type a reason after that.

Maura's response was nearly immediate. _Ring the bell._

…

"Hey, Maura?" The darkness is complete. She doesn't know when she'd fallen asleep, but when she opens her eyes, she can feel the gentle breathing of the doctor next to her.

"I'm here."

"Remember when you came home from Doctor's Without Borders?"

Maura's pause is miniscule, but Jane still hears it. "I do."

"Who called you?" She's never asked. She's never wanted to know before now. "Who called you and told you about…Hoyt?" She suppresses a shudder at his name.

"Jenna did." It's as though Maura expected this question.

"You talked to her," Jane says, not bothering to act like she doesn't know. "When you came back. Frost says she went to see you when you were working in Dorchester, before your promotion."

"She did," Maura says hesitantly.

"We'd been broken up a year. What did she want?"

She can hear the smile in Maura's voice as she answers. "She wanted to know why we weren't together yet," she says. The bed shifts as Maura moves a little closer.

"What did you tell her?"

Again with the reticence. Maura takes a breath, but does not let it out immediately.

"Maura?"

"I told her that I did not think that we would become romantically involved. I told her we seemed more suited to just be…good friends."

Jane rolls so that she is facing the doctor in the semi darkness. She sees Maura bite her lip. "And what did she say to that?"

"She told me in no uncertain terms that that was bullshit. That was the word she used."

Jane's eyes widen, and Maura's teeth flash a smile in the darkness.

"She told me that you are an island," Maura continues after a minute. "She told me that I might have been alone when we stopped talking, but that you were just as alone. An island unto yourself."

"She said that?"

Maura nods once. "She said that you were brave, and smart, and loyal, and all you ever did was support, support, support. She said that you didn't know how to deal with anyone who tried to support back." Maura pauses, and Jane sees her eyes drop to her mouth. "She said you never even asked for support until you met me. She said it woke you up."

Jane slides her hand along the sheets until her fingers are touching Maura's. "That day when you asked me about my brother. When you said not talking about it must be lonely."  
Maura nods.

"I hadn't realized that's what it was. Until…it was," Jane says.  
Maura is still looking at her mouth. She smiles when Jane leans forward to kiss her, a tiny, slow moving little smile, that seems to be made solely for Jane to lay claim to.

Maura sighs into her mouth. Their fingers have linked, and when Jane pulls away, Maura's hand tightens on hers, like she's afraid Jane will go.

"Don't disappear after this case," Jane whispers. "Please."

Maura pulls her closer, slipping a hand under her t-shirt. She sighs like vindication. Like she's been wondering for ages what it would feel like to have her hands on Jane's skin.  
"You've kept me waiting, Jane Rizzoli."

Jane kisses her again, feeling Maura's hand tighten in the small of her back.

"We've kept each other waiting," she says.

Maura grins.

"Touche."

* * *

...

...

 **Thank you all so much for reading this. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I am truly grateful to everyone who commented and read, and sent support. It means more than I'm able to say here, and lord knows I'm wordy as hell.**

 **Perhaps I'll see you all again sometime soon.  
** **This chapter a day stuff has been a great habit to get into.**

 **Take care of yourselves :)**

 **happy reading**

 **tc**


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